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Approach to Scripture, Prophetic Mediation

Approach to Scripture

The Bible is the Word of God (Rom 3:2; 2 Tim 3:16; 1 Pet 1:11; 2 Pet 1:21, v. 25).1 It is absolutely truthful because of its inspiration by God the Holy Spirit.2 For this reason, the orthodox Lutheran dogmaticians rightly called the prophets and apostles “amanuenses of the Spirit.”3 By proceeding in this manner, we stand firmly with one of the foundational documents of the Lutheran Reformation, the Formula of Concord in its affirmation that “We believe, teach, and confess that the sole rule and standard to which all dogmas together with all teachers should be estimated and judged are the prophetic and apostolic scriptures of the Old and New Testament.”4 Indeed, we can have no other starting point. Through God’s election of Israel, he has chosen to make its life and traditions the medium of his law and promise. Just as Jesus Christ is the true and perfect Word of God from all eternity, so too he is present and active communicating himself infallibly to the people of God through the Word of the prophets and apostles. Indeed, the “testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev 19:10).5

In light of the fact that scripture centers on the promise of the gospel, we must insist on the reality of its truthful historicity. Although “literal religion” is frequently maligned as childish by our culture, the truth of the gospel presupposes the truthful historicity of the Bible. The “nonliteral” and therefore more “mature” reading of the Bible insisted upon by much of contemporary culture in fact denigrates Christianity into an incipit religion of the law. It is infrequently acknowledged that Liberal Protestantism’s legalism automatically follows from its antiliteralism. If the Bible only presents us with fanciful allegorical stories, then these narratives are capable of doing nothing other than giving us general moral truths. But, if scripture centers on God’s promises which culminate in Christ, it must be the case that God has literally been faithful to his promises in the actual history of the world. To suggest that God’s activities of promise making and fulfillment in scripture are mere allegories or legendary “sagas”6 makes such promises about some other realm and not about the real, literal, historical world. If the scriptural world is not the real, literal, historical world, then what freedom can it give to sinners living in the real historical world? This means that the gospel-centered message of the Bible is inherently tied up with the truth of its history in which God makes his trustworthiness known.

Similarly, to admit that scripture could be untruthful in historical matters would also be to suggest that God’s ultimate promise in the gospel could be an error. Even if we have considerable evidence of the central events of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ, admitting that scripture can error downgrades the certainty of these events to the level of “probable.” Saying that the biblical documents can be untruthful is to say that their historical claims are to be believed with the same degrees of greater and lesser probability that all secular history possesses. Nevertheless, if we have full assurance of our salvation (as scripture tells us we do, Heb 10:19–20), then the events that underline those promises cannot merely be probable, but absolutely true. Indeed the nature of the faith does not allow Christians to confess that Christ “probably” died for their sins and “probably” rose for their justification. If that were the case, my assurance through Word and sacrament is also merely probable. But these things are not probable, but as Luther repeatedly states in the Catechisms, they are “most certainly true.” They are most certainly true because God makes them known and guarantees them in his truthful written Word. Indeed, as Luther aptly states in the Large Catechism: “Because we know that God does not lie. I and my neighbor and, in short, all men, may err and deceive, but the Word of God cannot err.”7

One could of course claim that only the “essential” facts of scripture need be true.8 But this leaves open the question: how does one decide upon what is essential? Where does one draw the line between the essential and inessential? Furthermore, as we will argue below, if any fact is only meaningful and understandable within an entire narrative framework (in this case, the whole of the history of salvation centering on Jesus) how then can any facts be inessential to the truth of the gospel?9 Indeed, all individual facts contribute to this narrative and for that reason none can be deemed inessential.

In light of this, our method of dealing with scripture in the following work will grow out of the claim that the Old and New Testaments are the utterly truthful, inspired Word of God centering on Jesus Christ as the incarnate eternal Word of God. Because God is the author of scripture, God cannot be thought to contradict himself. Nor does he err.10 Whereas modern liberal biblical scholars break the unity of scripture apart into contradictory traditions, we will read the scripture in a manner consummate with its own claims about itself and with the history of Christian interpretation prior to the Enlightenment.

Because God inspired the scriptures to speak his eternal Word Jesus through human words, we should not in our exposition of scripture shy away from the fact that the Old Testament is to be expounded christologically. This means that typological readings of the Old Testament are therefore completely appropriate. God’s authorial intention expressed through the Old Testament authors was always to point ahead to Jesus Christ.11 In keeping with this, we must also positively assert that the Old Testament is a book of predictive prophecy truly fulfilled in the manifestation of the Savior. Indeed, if Christ were not present in the Old Testament, it would be difficult to say Marcion was not correct after all.12

This does not mean that exegesis should hover somewhere above its concrete historical context. Rather, as we will argue below, it is a question of what contextualizes the history of salvation itself. Just as Jesus Christ is incarnate in the flesh of a particular people and within a particular historical situation, so too the Word of God as it is incarnate in the scriptures is mediated through the thought forms, history, and cultural structures common to the Ancient Near East and the Hellenistic world. If anything, this has been the main contribution of modern critical scholarship. Certain words, for example, mean different things within the context of different historical periods and are frequently used differently by various authors. At the same time, different biblical authors have unique emphases in their theology. Ecclesiastes is not Romans after all! The interpreter of scripture must be sensitive to this, and although some “proof-texting” is not entirely illegitimate, theologians must use it with care to the context of the overall book of scripture.

This means that we will expound the scriptures according to the sensus literalis, that is, the literal sense. This is by no means identical with the “literalism” or, perhaps even better, “letterism” as the Wittenberg Reformers were well aware. In his definition of the literal sense, Thomas Aquinas claimed that the literal sense was the meaning that God intended when he communicated the content of the Bible through the inspired authors.13 Doubtless, the Reformers would not have disagreed with such a sentiment.14

To show how the Reformers understood this intended meaning, we should turn to Luther’s concept of scriptural clarity. Luther spoke about two kinds of clarity, external clarity and inner clarity.15 The external clarity, claimed Luther, was the grammatical and hence historically accessible meaning of the text. Such a meaning was open to anyone. The inner clarity was the meaning of the Bible as it centered on Christ. Since one cannot understand Christ or see the unity of the Bible in him without the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 3) those who read the scripture without faith fail to grasp its true meaning. Conversely, it is also true that one will not understand the scriptures if one does not understand their mode of speaking and grammar, which are of course, historically conditioned.

We can therefore see what the sensus literalis is for Luther in light of Christ.16 On the one hand God communicated himself in the concrete, contextual meaning of the text for the people to whom he addressed it through the prophets and apostles. At the same time, he intended that that meaning might also bear witness to Christ and ultimately drive people to him. Therefore the literal sense is the coming together of the external and internal clarity of the Bible, just as when we refer to the person of Christ in the concrete we speak about the unity of his two natures. The literal sense is not, as modern interpreters have often thought, the meaning of the text as we might want to construe it based on the limited circumstances of certain historical authors.17 Rather, it is the harmony of the literal, grammatical meaning of the words of the Bible, together with the larger narrative of the history of salvation, culminating in and centering in Jesus Christ. This conception of the Bible is consummate with the Lutheran doctrine of the genus majestaticum,18 wherein the divine nature (in analogy to the internal clarity) is not something separate from the human nature (in analogy to the external clarity), but rather communicates the fullness of itself through the external form of the human nature.

Modern liberal biblical scholars have failed to understand this and will doubtless protest that this does violence to the original intention of the authors. Of course, extreme versions of Christian exegesis (beginning with Origen and moving on into the Middle Ages) did do violence to the original meaning of the text by burying it under imaginative and often times fanciful Christian allegory.19 The problem with all this was not that it attempted to read the Bible as a book about Jesus, but that it understood Jesus incorrectly. Allegorical reading tries to strip away the external meaning to find the Spirit hidden within. It gives us a Docetic Bible, in the same way that Protestant Liberalism gives us a Nestorian Bible. In this framework, the Bible effectively becomes a mere steppingstone to God hidden in his majesty, rather than God hidden in concrete written Word of the scripture.

The younger Luther recognized this and, beginning with his early commentaries on the Psalms (1513–1515) moved away from allegorical exegesis, insisting instead on the primacy of the sensus literalis. Nevertheless, he still interpreted the Psalms as having their ultimate reference in Christ.20 Holding these two aspects of the text of scripture together, Luther grasped what Wolfhart Pannenberg has in our present situation emphasized, that any study of any historical event must occur within an overall framework. In a similar vein, Pannenberg has noted, events take on meaning in light of what they later give rise to.21 For example, the meaning of the French Revolution can be more acutely realized in light of Soviet and Chinese revolutions than can be recognized merely by studying France in the late eighteenth century.22 N. T. Wright has similarly noted that a Roman citizen who heard about the resurrection of Jesus and was unfamiliar with the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures would doubtless have regarded him as being something like a Nero Redivivus.23 Not interpreting scripture in light of Christ ultimately leads to the application of an alien framework and context. It represents merely the imposition of a different framework on scripture, and not a neutral and scientific interpretation of scripture.

In point of fact, this is precisely what we are proposing that modern biblical scholars have done and continue to do. They impose an alien framework on scripture and thereby distort individual texts by interpreting them within that framework. One steeped in the history of modern biblical scholarship is bound to find this unsurprising in light of the fact that this tradition of interpretation begins with Baruch Spinoza and the revival of Epicurean thought in the early modern period.24 Part of Epicureanism was the denial of divine design within the world (Epicurus followed the atomism of Democritus) and the rejection of supernatural revelation (the gods, claimed Epicurus do not interact with the world).25

For this reason, scripture is seen as the patchwork of the different writings of those involved in “priestcraft” (as later Rationalists frequently called it) cut and pasted together and edited by one great imposter as the final redactor. Since different writing styles can obviously be used by the same author and because none of the intermediate or ur-documents that supposedly made up whole biblical books have ever been found, the supposition of modern liberal biblical scholars that the Bible was produced in this way is almost entirely based on discerning the power-play present in the rhetorical violence of the various invented authors of the theoretical documents (Q, JEDP, etc.). By reading the Bible this way, liberal critics of the Bible seek to free themselves from the heteronomous claims of these ancient authors and assert their autonomy against the text.26 This kind of freedom of course (as we shall see later) is not real freedom. It is a defensive action of a creature bent by sin. Such phony autonomy seeks a defense against the accusation of the law present in the supposedly heteronomous claims of the text. The only freedom that can be real freedom is in Christ. By accepting that the Bible is truthful and centers on Christ, believers gain the true freedom that modern liberal biblical scholars seek through the destruction of biblical authority.

Epicureanism also automatically rules out the supernatural. This again is merely an a prior hermeneutical decision, and not something necessitated by the material itself. Rather than offer any hard evidence that the Hebrew prophets did not predict Jesus, they merely interpret the scriptures within a framework that does not view reality as centering on the christological. Indeed, not only is predictive prophecy ruled out of court, but there can be no divinely designed melody of salvation history. Any subtle connection between one event in scripture and another must be manufactured afterwards out of thin air. Any fulfillment of predictive prophecy must have been redacted after the event to fit the prophecy.27 In reading modern biblical scholarship what one is amazed by time and again is how commentators get away with so much conjecture without offering a slightest bit of evidence. They also frequently present weak evidence or dismiss evidence devastating to their position.28 Since their audience has been acculturated into the Epicurean assumptions about divine agency, they can simply build conjecture on conjecture. Those who challenge such practices (within and outside the academic world) are dismissed as “Fundamentalists” who worship a “Paper Pope.” All this suggests that many exegetes are engaged in a covert theological agenda and not in neutral historical investigation as they attempt to claim. As was suggested at the beginning of this section, the theology they propose is one that needs scripture to be errant in order to bolster their religion of allegory (so that they might maintain their precious bourgeois autonomy against the peril of divine providence and miracle) and moralizing (so that in their autonomy they might continue their project of self-justification).

This being the case, we can observe that modern biblical scholarship with its supposed objectivity is simply another exegetical tradition with no more claims to neutral interpretation than that of traditional orthodox Christianity.29 In fact, as we have seen, it has less of a claim than traditional Reformation hermeneutics. Though it insists on a privileged status as more neutral and rational, there is no evidence to demonstrate this. Recent scholars (none of whom can be characterized as “Fundamentalists”) have argued that there is in fact a great deal of data that calls major aspects of the critical tradition into question.30 Ultimately, much of the critical tradition has accomplished little but to rip the biblical texts away from their proper framework of divine inspiration and centeredness on Christ, and imposed an alien, Epicurean framework upon them.

This being the case, Christian interpreters of scripture should feel no obligation to adopt this framework. The fact that so many creedally orthodox Christians (mainly in mainline Protestant institutions) think that they are under this obligation at the present time demonstrates not the wealth of data contradicting traditional christological interpretation, but rather a loss of nerve on the part of Christianity faced with the rather paltry challenge of modern and postmodern Epicureanism.

This does not mean that they should reject insights from all scholars who use such critical methods. Many modern techniques of biblical scholarship (most notably biblical archaeology) have yielded a great deal of information about the original context of scripture. In fact, as the late Kurt Marquart has helpfully noted, no modern form of biblical criticism is in itself morally wrong or anti-Christian, rather it is how the technique is used.31 When evaluating scholarship one should not ask whether the scholar uses these modern techniques, rather one should ask whether the scholar proceeds from orthodox Christian assumptions (truthfulness and Christ-centeredness of scripture) or from another framework (Epicurean, etc.).

To summarize our method and approach: Because this study works from the perspective of what the Bible says about itself (namely, that it is divinely inspired and centers on Jesus Christ) we will expound the whole Bible on the basis of its chief article, Jesus Christ and his redeeming work. This does not mean to ignore or smooth over the historical context of scripture, its variety of genres, or its diversity of theological vocabulary. What it means is to recognize the harmony and unity of the historical and theological meaning of scripture. Discovering and expounding the sensus literalis means correlating the historical, contextual, and grammatical meaning of texts with their overall center found in Christ. This is possible because God himself is the author of scripture and his intended meaning throughout his narration of the Bible is Jesus.

In terms of actual practice, our treatment of the Old Testament will recognize the analogical similitude between God’s saving acts within Israel and his final saving act in Jesus in the form of typology. Since the same God is the agent of both, then both bare an irresistible relationship to one another and exist within a common framework of meaning and history. Similarly, we will not hesitate to assert that predictive prophecy does exist and that the prophets of the Old Testament did quite literally predict Jesus. If we accept God’s power and providence, as well as the witness of the New Testament, we should not have any intellectual difficulty with this concept.

Furthermore, in order to respect both the diversity and unity of the scriptures, our method will be essentially synthetic. We will examine the content of the different books and strains of tradition in the Old Testament, and correlate their meaning with one another. Isaiah, for example, speaks of the Messiah using different terminology than does Jeremiah. He also describes different aspects of the Messiah’s career. Nevertheless, both speak of the same Messiah and both have some commonalities in their predictions (a new covenant, forgiveness, etc.). Hence, both should be treated separately, while the results of exegesis for both can be correlated with one another in order to reveal a common witness to the truth.

In two opening chapters, our goal will be to expound common themes of mediatorship that emerged in the history of the Old Testament. This makes sense because the works of the Old Testament are addressed to a common audience (ancient Israel) over a long period of time. For this common audience there is a shared history, with a generally (though not completely) similar theological vocabulary. In discussing the New Testament in later chapters, we will divide our work up according to books or groups of books (i.e., Paul’s epistles, Johannine literature, etc.). The New Testament writings are occasional writings to different audiences (i.e., Gentile and Jewish, etc.), with different shared histories (think Hebrews vs. 1 Corinthians vs. the Johannine epistles, etc.). Hence, although there is a unity of witness, there is a greater diversity of theological terminology (Paul vs. John, John vs. the Synoptic Gospels, etc.). For this reason, we will divide up the New Testament by groups of books and correlate their common witness to Jesus with one another.

Exile and Return

In order to understand Christ and his coming, we must first understand the history of salvation in the Old Testament that his advent presupposes. In the twentieth century, there were a number of attempts to posit a central theme or concept of the Old Testament. This has tended to take the form of the identification of an abstract concept or idea as a central theme. Notably, this identification of the organizing principle of the Old Testament with an abstract concept has been the method of both Walther Eichrodt and Gerhard von Rad. In Eichrodt’s case, this was the “covenant,” whereas for von Rad it was the significantly more fluid, yet equally problematic concept of “recitation.”32

Instead of an abstract concept, we will choose a historical pattern. The pattern that we will identify as residing at the very heart of the history of salvation in the Old Testament is the theme “exile and return.” This theme is not an arbitrary decision of one historical pattern among many, but rather stands as the very contours of the history of salvation as it is presented to us in the scriptures. The foundational events in Israel’s story as recounted in both the historical and prophetic writings are in fact the redemption from Egypt and the settlement of Palestine. In the same way also, the preaching of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, the pre-exilic prophets, and the later experiences of the Babylonian exile certainly must also be viewed as reinforcing this historical and theological pattern of existence upon Israel’s psyche. As we will observe, such a pattern prefigures the narrative of Christ’s death and resurrection. From the perspective of confessional Lutheran theology this way of understanding the Old Testament is particularly important in light of the fact that both exile and return are the temporal manifestations of God’s law and grace.

Moreover, Israel did not merely view exile and return as being a quirk of their particular national history, but the pattern of cosmic and human existence. The account of Genesis 2 begins with the creation of human beings (Gen 2:15–25) and their subsequent placement in the garden of Eden. Although we will later return to the wider significance of Eden for the Israelite cult, here it is sufficient to say that Eden is described as a place where humanity works the soil (Gen 2:15) and where the fertility of the earth is guaranteed. Furthermore, YHWH is directly present to the first humans and guarantees his favor to them by his glorious presence (Gen 3:8). Humanity sins by disobeying the divine command and by listening to the serpent, a false mediator of God’s will (“Did God actually say . . . ?” Gen 3:10). This leads to the exile of Adam and Eve from the garden, which brings with it their removal from God’s gracious presence and the guarantee of the fertility of the soil (“cursed is the ground because of you” Gen 3:17). They are also denied immortality (v. 19). As many interpreters have recognized, such a narrative is echoed in Israel’s own story. G. K. Beale correctly observes the parallels between Adamic humanity and Israel in Genesis 2–3: “Israel, as representative of God’s true humanity, also separated themselves from the divine presence and failed to carry the commission . . . Israel failed even as had Adam. And like Adam, Israel was also cast out of the ‘garden land’ into exile.”33

If Genesis’s primal history suggests that humanity exists in a state of universal exile, the Pentateuchal narrative of the election of the patriarchs suggests that Israel itself is the beginning of the restoration of the Adamic humanity. In describing the structure of the Genesis narrative, N. T. Wright observes:

Thus, at major turning-points in the story [the Pentateuchal narrative] Abraham’s call, his circumcision, the offering of Isaac, the transition from Abraham to Isaac and from Isaac to Jacob, and the sojourn in Egypt—the narrative quietly insists that Abraham and his progeny inherit the role of Adam and Eve.34

Throughout Genesis, YHWH’s promise to the patriarchs, (realized in the exodus and the conquest), is that he will multiply their descendants and give them dominion in the land of Canaan.35 As Wright goes on to demonstrate, this status of Israel as the restoration of Adam and Eve comes across most strongly throughout the story because the dual promise of dominion in the land and of having many descendants directly parallels the promise made to the first man and woman at the end of the account of creation in Genesis 1: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Gen 1:28).

The Pentateuchal narrative also reinforces the identification of Israel as the restoration of Adamic humanity in a number of other ways. The land that YHWH promises Israel is in some measure represented as a restoration of the pre-lapsarian blessing on the soil: “And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord” (Gen 13:10, emphasis added). For Israel, the restoration of the presence of God enjoyed before the Fall also occurs. We are told that YHWH’s glory (kavod) traveled with Israel during the entire period of the exodus under the form of a cloud (Exod 40:36–38). When the tabernacle’s construction was completed, a thick cloud filled the camp and the glory of YHWH descended into the tabernacle (Exod 40:34–35).

These descriptions of Israel’s early history suggest several things. First, the narrative strongly implies that the tabernacle and the later temple are in a sense the restoration of Eden, wherein humans dwelled directly in God’s gracious presence. In the same manner the promises to the patriarchs and the fecundity of creation are portrayed as a restoration of the true humanity. Secondly, these accounts imply that through entering into a covenant with the patriarchs, YHWH has pledged his own being to Israel as a pledge of his faithfulness. Indeed, to give an unconditional promise means always to give the self, because a promiser is logically tied to the enactment and fulfillment of the promise. The presence and the activity of the divine self now must conform to the situation of the one to whom the promise was made.

If then Edenic harmony and its restoration in the election of Israel means the renewal of creation and the self-donating presence of YHWH, then sin and its consequence of exile mean the very opposite of these goods. YHWH speaks to the Israelites through Moses and tells them that “if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant . . . I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it” (Lev 26:15–16). Indeed, “I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins.” In the exile, “I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze” (vv. 18–19). The curses that we discover in Leviticus also suggest that there will be a loss of Israel’s restored dominion in the land: “I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you” (v. 17). These curses are also well attested by the threats of the later prophets. Ezekiel, who was a priest, also places an emphasis on the loss of the divine presence. According to Ezekiel 10, the prophet fully realized the completeness of the judgment of the exile only when he had a vision of the divine glory leaving the temple (Ezek 10:18).

Nevertheless, in spite of the situation of exile and human sin, YHWH promises his continuing faithfulness to Israel. After the passages threatening judgment, we find passages in the same texts assuring Israel of God’s continuing faithfulness to his promises made to the patriarchs. In spite of human sin, there would be eschatological renewal and the return from exile: “I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham” (Lev 26:42). St. Paul observes in Galatians 3:13–25, the Mosaic record demonstrates that the Abrahamic covenant of grace (or more properly, his “testament,” as Paul puts it) precedes and in fact stands as separate from the Sinaitic covenant of law. In contrast to the Abrahamic testament of unilateral promise and blessings, the Sinaitic covenant entails a long list of demands and curses. The reception of the two covenants is different as well. Von Rad notes that Abraham is passive and asleep as he receives the unilateral covenant of grace (Gen 15). By contrast, we are told that the Israelites were called upon to actively receive and to perform the works of the Sinaitic covenant: “Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do’” (Exod 24:3).36

Therefore, YHWH’s dealing with Israel takes on a paradoxically dual character. On the one hand, God has pledged himself to Israel and will fulfill his promises to it in spite of every obstacle. On the other hand, the covenant of Sinai is equally valid and demands on the part of Israel a real heartfelt obedience to God’s commandments. Both words from God are valid and therefore the unconditional nature of the former continuously comes into conflict with the conditional nature of the latter throughout the history of salvation. In the book of Hosea, the prophet enacts the sign of this paradoxical situation by marrying a prostitute (Hos 1, 3). As a sign of Israel’s state of affairs, Hosea’s marriage presupposes the validity of the covenant of the law, as well as God’s unilateral and unconditional faithfulness to Israel. Israel is rightly imputed with sin for having broken the law by prostituting itself to the nations, but YHWH must remain true to his promise and remains “married” to Israel in spite of its apostasy.

The promise of YHWH to Israel throughout the prophetic literature is that ultimately God’s own faithfulness will triumph over the impediments of human sin and divine wrath. Therefore, as early as the book of Deuteronomy (chapters 28–32), we have a promise of a second exodus and renewal of the divine-human relationship. Similar to the prophetic writings of Hosea, we have the promise of a second exodus wherein God will reestablish Israel’s status (Hos 11–14).37

Isaiah 40–66 goes further and envisions a universal end to exile. God, who due to Israel’s sin has withdrawn his personal presence from his people and his dwelling place Zion, is said to be returning through a miraculous desert highway (40:3–6). He will do this because he will forgive Israel’s sin (40:2). Not only will Israel return to Zion, the city of YHWH’s presence (Isa 44–45), but the Gentiles who also suffer the universal exile from God’s presence will stream from the whole expanse of creation to worship the true God (Isa 45:23).

In the case of Ezekiel, God promises the prophet that he himself will follow the Jews into the exile he has enacted upon them and thereby stand in solidarity with them: “Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: Though I removed them far off among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a while in the countries where they have gone’” (Ezek 11:16, emphasis added). Later in the book, when there is a prophecy of the return from exile, restoration takes the form of a metaphorical resurrection from the dead (i.e., the restoration of the life and fecundity of creation, Ezek 37:1–14), the rebuilding of an elaborate eschatological temple (40–48), and return of the presence of God (37:27, 43:1–12). This time though, the presence of the divine glory is not just restricted to the holy of holies, but permeates the entire nation: “My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever” (37:27). Beale in his study on chapters 40–48 of Ezekiel has demonstrated that the restored Jerusalem is itself not only a temple-city (i.e., a perpetual arena of the self-donating presence of God), but displays significant features that make it similar to the garden of Eden.38

The apocalyptic tradition, as embodied in the book of Daniel (though also in Isa 26 and a number of other Old Testament texts), continues this line of thought in seeing a restoration of creation through a resurrection of the dead: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2).39 Here we may observe that Daniel posits a final restoration for some, (an eternal return from exile and reversal of the effects of the Fall as we have it in Genesis 3) and for others an infinite and eternal eschatological judgment (who will stay in an eternal state of exile). In this sense, God’s promises of life and freedom to Israel are fulfilled and expanded.

This restoration does not merely extend to new and eternal bodily life. The presence of God will not just return to resurrected Israel, but the resurrected will share the glory of YHWH: “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (12:3). Walther Eichrodt makes a similar connection and observes: “The Daniel passage is unique in laying stress on the share in the divine light-glory, an image which is in any case entirely in keeping with the conception of God’s new world as a revelation of the divine kavod [glory].”40 Daniel 2 and 7 also envision the restoration of Edenic harmony and the return from cosmic exile in the form of the destruction of the idolater’s demonic kingdoms, and their replacement by God’s own kingdom. Much like in Genesis 1, where the humans made in God’s image are given dominion on the earth, the Messiah is described in Daniel 7 as “one like a son of man” (v. 13) being given “dominion and glory and a kingdom” (v. 14). Moreover, as Beale has also noted concerning Daniel 2, the vision of the growing mountain which fills the entire creation is suggestive of the universalization of the Temple Mount and therefore the donation of divine presence to the whole creation.41

In summary, we therefore may observe throughout the Old Testament a pattern of exile and return, both in the understanding of Israel’s own history, but also forming the background for creation and the eschton. This pattern of divine activity as we can observe is rooted in YHWH’s dual relation with Israel as recorded in the historical accounts of the establishment of the law and gospel.

Mediators of the Promise: An Introduction

The first mediatorial figure of the Old Testament must be thought to be Adam. As we shall see, the Genesis account portrays Adam as prophet, priest, and king.42 He possesses the universal dominion of kingship (Gen 1:28), he is placed over Eden as its ruling high priest (we will see evidence of this in the discussion of priestly mediation), and he was first to be given the Word of God (2:15–17). Nevertheless, he failed in his exercise of his mediatorial position and Israel was elected as the new carrier of the promise of universal redemption (3:15).

As previously noted, the Old Testament envisions creation and the history of salvation as existing within a matrix of exile and return. Within the pre-exilic history of Israel both the inspired prophets and the historians recognized YHWH’s patient and persistent attempts to maintain his gracious promise to Israel. In particular, such a gracious purpose takes the form of YHWH’s election of a series of mediatorial figures whose function it was to maintain the relationship between God and his people. Because of YHWH’s own self-donation as Israel’s God, he himself provided means of dealing with Israel’s failure to fulfill the law through his appointed mediators. Throughout the Old Testament such mediators took the forms of prophets, priests, and kings. Since, as the Apostle Paul tells us, there is but “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5), we must view these mediators as deficient in their roles as fulfillers of the law, but nevertheless efficient in prefiguring Christ. Their lack of success at resolving the tension between the law and the gospel creates the context wherein Christ enters the drama of history and fulfills all things.

It will be our thesis in this section that a pattern can be discerned in the function of the various mediatorial figures in the Old Testament traditions. First, mediators are consistently portrayed as representing both God and Israel. This represents both the unity of the promise binding God and Israel together, as well as prefiguring the final unity of God and humanity through Christ, the God-man. God’s ultimate faithfulness to his people and the whole cosmos will be to enter the field of battle himself as an individual Israelite. This hearkens back also to the protevangelium: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). If the redeemer destroys the power of Satan, he must be divine, since humans after the Fall clearly remain under Satan’s power.43 Similarly, he must be human, because he is the “seed” of the woman and represents humans who are condemned to eternal death by God.44 Thirdly, he must be born of a virgin since we are told that he is the woman’s “seed,” not the man’s. As David Scaer notes, in the cultural understanding of the Ancient Near East, women did not have “seed” and thereby did not contribute to reproduction.45 Therefore the “seed of the woman” is highly suggestive of virgin birth. Indeed such a birth represents a break with the previous dispensation of death (Rom 5; 1 Cor 15:42–56) and an inauguration of a new creation.46

Next, we must recognize that mediatorial figures were established to deal with Israel’s sin. Mediators were regularly appointed by YHWH when Israel failed in a significant way to be the true humanity. This also in turn prefigures Christ’s role as the one who overcame the curse of the law and made manifest God’s purpose of grace towards sinners. The second aspect of mediation follows from the first, in that the mediator then represents the fulfillment of the law on the part of Israel, as well as God’s righteous maintenance of his promises to Israel through the fulfillment of the mediator. Christ is therefore mediator according to both natures, as the Formula of Concord states.47

Finally, the Old Testament explicitly understands God’s election of mediators as possessing an ultimate fulfillment in the coming of a Messiah. Throughout the Old Testament, there are prophecies of the coming of one who will ultimately fulfill the various forms of mediation. Though these prophecies are diverse, the protevangelium spoken to our first parents unifies and frames these prophecies as all pointing to the manifestation of the work of Christ. Ultimately, Christ both recapitulates Adam and the history of Israel.

Prophetic Mediation

Within the Old Testament there is a significant amount of material concerning the work of prophetic mediators. Since Adam was the first to receive the Word of God, we must designate him as the first prophet. Nevertheless, below we will mainly focus our discussion on the prophet Moses in that he is exemplar and source of prophetic mediation throughout the Old Testament. All the later prophets call Israel back to the law and promise mediated to Israel by Moses. This choice is also fitting because the Bible views him as being a type of Christ in this capacity (Deut 18:18, Acts 7:37). Moses also exemplifies Christ in that his temporal exodus from Egypt prefigures Christ’s leading humanity to a spiritual exodus from sin, death, the devil, and the law (1 Cor 5:7, 10; Heb 2–3). Beyond leading Israel out of Egypt, the major function of Moses’s prophetic ministry is the fulfillment of Israel’s vocation of receiving the Word of God, of which Christ being the true Word of God (John 1) is the final fulfillment.

Moses’s role as mediator is best illustrated in the later chapters of the book of Exodus. Beginning in chapter 19, we are told after the long journey from Egypt that Israel came to the foot of Sinai. God calls Moses to the top of the mountain and tells him that he is going to come to the people in “a thick cloud” (Exod 19:9) (to conceal his glory) and then will speak with Moses. The purpose of such speech is so that “the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever” (v. 9). When God’s special presence finally descends onto the mountain, he does so in fire and smoke (v. 18). The people are warned to stay away lest they perish (v. 21). Moses and Aaron are then instructed to ascend the mountain. Before they can do so, God speaks the Decalogue from within the cloud (19:25—20:17). The people and the priests hear God’s own voice reciting the words of the law and are completely terrified by both the sound and the visible manifestations of the divine glory. They cry out to Moses (who has apparently not ascended the mountain yet), “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die” (20:20). John Durham, commenting on this passage, states that Moses’s response is best understood as suggesting that God has come to Israel in this manner in order to test them or give experience of his presence to them so that they will not sin.48 In this way, the people have failed such a testing, and as Durham further comments, they have prefigured their future failure as God’s people.49

A breach has therefore opened up between the holy God and his people dead in their sin. Moses moves into the breach created by their inability to receive the Word of YHWH. We are told that “The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was” (20:21). In spite of the earlier instruction, Aaron is not reported to have entered into the thick darkness with him and Moses therefore becomes the sole mediator.50 On the mountain, further instructions concerning the law are given (20:22—23:33) and Moses reports these commandments to the people who pledge themselves to obey the law (24:3).

There are several interesting aspects of mediation that we discover in this account. First, because of human sin, there is a necessary distance between the divine presence and humans. Israel cannot enter into the darkness of Sinai and receive the law, just as Adam could not stand in the presence of God once he had fallen into sin (Gen 3:8–10). Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were able to stand in the presence of God without fear. Israel cannot even bear the sound of the divine voice issuing from Sinai. For this reason, Moses as a mediator is necessary to represent Israel and do what Israel cannot do. The text of Exodus seems to make Moses an embodiment of Israel on several occasions. God refers to Israel as “my firstborn son” (Exod 4:22) and the name “Moses” means “a son” in Egyptian.51 By divine power, he is able to bring YHWH and Israel together by fulfilling Israel’s vocation in its place. That God called and established Moses as a mediator also means that the prophet represents God’s own righteous faithfulness. He elects Moses to do what Israel cannot do. In this sense, Moses the mediator represents both God and Israel.

As the narrative of Exodus progresses there are several interesting developments in regard to Moses’s mediatorship. The first development is in regards to the content of the Word of YHWH that he receives. Over the next ten chapters of Exodus, the pattern and accoutrements of the tabernacle are revealed. Before Moses is called to the mountain and the laws are given, YHWH tells the prophet that Israel is a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (19:6). Therefore all the works of the nation are the works of a priestly people and thereby a kind of liturgical service. The prior grace of God at having bound himself in the promise of grace to the patriarchs and having redeemed the people from Egypt is the presupposition of such service. The Ten Commandments themselves contain the preface: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (20:2). As a priestly people, Israel lives out the true human destiny of divine service as a response to prior divine favor given to them. In other words, their works of obedience are a liturgical activity in response to sheer divine love and grace. Israel is then a liturgical community in the truest sense. Prophetic mediation is then ordered to the establishment of priestly-liturgical worship of the one true Lord.

The second development is the challenge to Moses’s mediatorship. These challenges are ultimately counteracted by divine acts of approval in the form of theophanies. In chapter 24 of Exodus, after the people had agreed to follow the divine commandments, the elders of Israel ascend the mountain and have a partial vision of the divine glory or kavod. It must be explained here, in order to clarify our discussion below, what the Old Testament in general means by the kavod or the “glory of the Lord.” Walther Eichrodt gives a helpful and compact definition of the kavod as the “reflected splendor of the transcendent God, a token of the divine glory, by means of which Yahweh declares his gracious presence.”52 Here Eichrodt emphasizes the two most important elements of the kavod as it is frequently used in relationship to God, namely, the kavod is a manifestation of the presence of God, and of divine luminosity. According to Eichrodt, kavod also has a second connotation of referring to a person’s possession of riches, honor, and success. In other words, kavod can also mean glory, honor, or praise given or possessed by a person.53

In identifying the nature of the kavod, we will venture farther than Eichrodt. It must be recognized that the kavod does not merely refer to an attribute of God. Neither is kavod merely a metaphor for divine presence. Rather the Old Testament views the glory of the Lord to be something hypostatized. The kavod is often spoken of as God, but also separately as standing in relation to God (see Exod 33, Ezek 1–2). Some recognition of this fact continued in post-biblical Judaism. There is a manifestation of a continued belief in the distinction between God and his kavod in what Jewish scholar Alan Segal refers to as the “Heresy of the Two Powers” in rabbinic Judaism.54

This hypostatized divine presence of the divine glory is identical with the divine Word and Name, as Charles Gieschen has clearly shown.55 The Name of God is YHWH, “I am what I am” (Exod 3:14) (or perhaps “I will be whom I will be”). We are told in Genesis 1 that the first word that God utters is “Let there be.” Gieschen notes that many early Jewish interpreters of the text likely made a connection between the Word and the Name because they possess the identical verb “to be.”56 That there is an intentional connection in the biblical text itself and not just in the imagination of the later interpreters seems to be highly plausible insofar as God is identified throughout the Old Testament as both the creator and the initiator of the divine-human covenantal relationships. He “will be who he will be” because by his electing act he initiates his relationship both in the form creation and redemption. He thereby identifies himself with his redeeming and electing act and makes his reality known through it (for example see Exod 6:2–8, 33:19).

The Word and Name are therefore identical in that they have the same content of the divine reality and utterance. The Name is also identical with kavod, in that the tabernacle/temple is interchangeably described as the place of the dwelling of the glory of YHWH (Exod 40) and YHWH’s Name: “He [Solomon/the Messiah] shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Sam 7:13, emphasis added. Also see Deut 12:5, v. 11; 1 Kgs 5:5, 8:16; 2 Chr 6:5).57 This identification is also made in Exodus by an act of poetic parallelism. When Moses is told he will see God’s kavod, YHWH explains: “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Exod 33:19, emphasis added).

Lastly, the entity designated as the “Angel of YHWH” is himself also identical with the kavod, the Name, and the Word. This can be shown studying a number of passages in the Old Testament.58 The Angel of YHWH who appears in luminous manner on Mount Horeb, divulges and identifies himself with the divine Name in Exodus 3:2 and 3:14.59 The Angel of YHWH is spoken of as a different “thou” to YHWH’s “I,” while also being the very presence of YHWH himself. YHWH will not go with Israel, but his angel will (Exod 33:3).60 Nevertheless, the Angel of YHWH is identical with his Name and presence: “Pay careful attention to him [the Angel of YHWH] and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him” (Exod 23:21, emphasis added; also see 33:1).61 In Isaiah 63:9, he is called “angel of his presence.” In the book of Judges, Manoah remarks after the Angel of YHWH has announced Samson’s birth and departed in the flame of a sacrifice: “we have seen God!” (Judg 13:22). His wife does not contradict him, but merely says that it has been for their good and not for ill (vv. 23–24). We see a similar situation in the narrative of Hagar’s escape (Gen 16:7–13). As shall be observed later, some texts in the Old Testament also suggest that the Angel of the YHWH functions as a heavenly priest and king, who parallel Israel’s earthly kings and priests. Later, we will see from the data of the New Testament that this figure is to be properly identified with the preincarnate Christ.62

Having entered into the presence of the glory of the Lord, the elders return again to the camp, while Moses is called to again ascend to the heights of Sinai in order to see the pattern of the tabernacle and receive the instructions regarding priestly worship (Exod 25–31). Meanwhile, the Israelites come to doubt Moses’s mediatorship and turn to Aaron for help. Aaron’s solution is to cast a golden calf and announce to the camp: “These are your gods [or possibly ‘your God’], O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (32:4).

There is some debate among scholars regarding the function of the calf. First it should be observed that this event parallels an incident of the erection of two calf statues in 1 Kings 12:28 by Jeroboam the northern Israelite king. These calves are also credited with having led Israel out of Egypt and are viewed as an alternative to the temple in Jerusalem. As Cornelis Houtman points out, in the ancient Levant a rather significant number of deities were represented as a bull, including Baal and the Canaanite sky god El.63 This of course leads to the question of whether the image is meant to represent the deity and mediate his presence or merely to be a pedestal or throne indicating the presence of the deity. Martin Noth takes the latter position; Houtman appears to lean towards the former position.64

Either way, both agree that this incident does not represent an apostasy in the sense of abandoning YHWH for another deity.65 Beyond this cultural-religious background, the narrative context also helps us discern the function of the establishment of the calf. Moses has functioned previously throughout the narrative as the mediator, that is, as representative of the unity of God and Israel before both. He has nonetheless disappeared and therefore Israel is in need of a new mediator, a “replacement” of Moses as Rolf Rendtorff describes the situation.66 Such a mediator must represent and mediate the presence of the deity to them. Hence, after having seen the luminous hypostatized glory of the Lord, they construct a golden calf, whose luminosity will imitate the divine kavod. They choose the image of the calf because their view of YHWH is very likely similar to that of the Canaanite’s view of El.67 Jethro states earlier in the narrative: “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods” (Exod 18:11, emphasis added). Statements like this suggest that they thought of YHWH as simply the highest God among the gods, much like El. Such a god would, like El, need a fitting mediatorial image that would reflect its power.

Trading an image for God himself makes sense in the logic of sinful Israel. As we have seen, Israel cannot stand the real presence of YHWH even when it is concealed. God proves uncontrollable to them when he speaks his law (19–20). Similarly, God’s unilateral self-giving by his descent into the cult (which as we will see serves as a medium for the giving of his holiness to Israel) also proves that God cannot be manipulated. Rather, he graciously gives himself without human cooperation or merit (40). An imitation god keeps God at a safe distance or reduces God to one object among others. As a result, Israel’s own conceit and self-justification can continue unabated.68

If we interpret the Israelites’ action in this manner, then it is easy to view the next few chapters as functioning to reestablish the sole mediatorship of Moses. After the apostasy has been suppressed and Moses again takes control of the community, we are told that the prophet again communes with YHWH. He asks YHWH for a means to confirm his promise of grace and Moses’s mediatorship: “Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” (Exod 33:16). YHWH insists that he will bless the people. Moses asks that he be given a direct vision of the divine kavod: “Please show me your glory” (Exod 33:18). God tells him that he cannot do this directly, but that his “Name” (that is, his glorious presence) will pass before him as he stands in a cleft of a rock (v. 22).69 Moses then sees (however indirectly) the divine kavod as YHWH proclaims his own glory. He is then instructed to chisel out the words of the law which he has previously destroyed and deliver them again to Israel. When he comes down from the mountain, he frightens the people because his face shines with the glory of the Lord (34:29–30). He must therefore cover his face as he reads the law to them. In contrast to the calf, Moses’s face contains the real presence of YHWH and not an image. Martin Noth notes that (particularly in Ancient Egypt) the assumption of a face-covering after communion with a deity was a usual practice of the priestly caste. It effectively meant that “the priest assumes the ‘face’ of his deity and identifies himself with him.”70 Thomas Dozeman observes that although the name Moses only technically means “son,” its use in other Egyptian names is typically integrated with a larger name of a god.71 Therefore implicitly the name might be construed as meaning “divine son.” This fact taken together with his luminous face suggests that Moses prefigures the glory incarnation of the true divine Son as manifested on the mountain of transfiguration (Matt 17:1–9, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36).

Whereas the false mediator of the calf possessed a golden luminosity that imitated the divine kavod, Moses the true mediator possesses the true glory of God: “One might say that the transfigured Moses, representative of YHWH, symbolized the presence of YHWH himself among Israel.”72 This glory is hidden glory, since he must cover his face when reading the law. Furthermore, Moses’s action parallels the revelation of Exodus chapter 20 in that he conceals the divine glory in the same manner that YHWH did earlier. His mediation of the glorious presence is discerned by hearing and not by vision.

Lastly, it should be observed that Moses’s glorious appearance seems to be connected with the concept of humanity we find in Genesis 1–3 and Israel in Exodus 19. He is the true image of God, because he is a human being and not an animal. As Genesis 1 teaches, it is humans and not animals (in contradistinction to the cultures surrounding Israel) that are the image of the deity (1:27–28).73 He is also the true Israel because he has received the Word of the Lord. This is something that Israel ultimately could not do. If we also take the second connotation of kavod as meaning honor and personal glory, we can also observe that Moses fulfills the true liturgical vocation of Israel as a priestly nation to reflect the divine glory, as his doxology on the mountain demonstrates. His doxology is the giving of personal glory to YHWH in the form of praise. This interpretation is further bolstered by the fact that Moses is reported to have proclaimed cultic regulations and the pattern for the construction of the tabernacle in this state of luminosity, that is, regulations ordering the worship or the giving of honor to the true God (Exod 35–40).

Beyond being the representative of God and Israel before Israel, Moses also takes up the function of representing God and Israel before God. Returning again to the activity of Moses on Sinai before his reception of divine glory, we are told that YHWH informs Moses of the golden calf apostasy going on in the camp. God proposes to Moses that he annihilate the Israelites and make Moses into a great nation (32:10). Moses pleads with God to not destroy the Israelites and to “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self” (32:13, emphasis added). Here Moses stands before YHWH as both a representative of Israel, pleading with God concerning the sin of the people and as God before God by wielding God’s own Word of grace against his Word of judgment. In this, he becomes a type of Christ’s self-offering to and advocacy before the Father. After going down from the mountain and disrupting the apostasy, Moses again returns to the Lord and in a supreme act of mediation, offers his own life as a sin offering (32:31–32). This atoning mediation fails though because God declares in his anger that those who have sinned against him will pay with their own lives (v. 34). Moses shows himself to be inferior to Christ, whose self-offering was accepted by the Father. Neither is Moses himself ultimately saved from condemnation. According to Numbers, he is not allowed to enter the Promised Land because of an incident in which he abuses his role as mediator (Num 20:1–13). Much as the law cannot bring humanity into the rest of redemption (vita passive), Moses, the mediator of law, could not bring Israel into God’s rest (Heb 2:16–19).

In subsequent Israelite history, prophetic mediatorship was also unsuccessful. In spite of this, we find the promise of the eschatological fulfillment of prophetic mediatorship throughout the Old Testament. In the farewell address of Deuteronomy 18, Moses prophesies of the coming of a prophet like himself, in whose mouth God will place his words (18:18). The book of Deuteronomy and the so-called Deuteronomistic history emphasize that God is present in his Word and in his Name, and therefore the implication is that this prophet will mediate the divine presence.74 It also follows that this prophet must be greater than Moses and therefore must mediate the divine presence in an even greater manner than he did. If he were not greater, then Moses’s mediation would have sufficed. Taking this reasoning one step further, we must posit that the coming of this prophet represents the coming of God himself. If Moses spoke with God “face to face” (Exod 33:11) and a prophet is measured by his closeness to God and his ability to mediate the divine (Num 12:6–8), then the only possibility for a greater revelation of God would be the coming of God himself.

Isaiah understands this coming of a prophet like Moses to be the coming of the Servant of YHWH, who is himself YHWH. We are first informed that the Lord himself is personally returning to Zion (Isa 40), thereby reversing the state of exile. This returning “glory” will be seen by “all flesh” (40:5). This returning presence is clearly identical with the Servant of the Lord. He is God’s luminous glory in that he is a “light to the nations” (49:6). This description clearly parallels the universal manifestation of the kavod in 40:5. Furthermore he is described as the “arm of the Lord” (53:1, 63:12). He is also the “angel of the presence” sent to save (63:9).75

If Isaiah describes a new exodus, then there must logically also be a new Moses and a new Passover lamb. Just as Moses sprinkled Israel with the blood of the covenant (Exod 24:8), so the Servant will “sprinkle many nations” (Isa 52:15) and will not only establish a covenant, but himself will be a “covenant for the people” (42:6).76 In light of the fact that the redeeming promise of grace ends the exile, which has occurred because of sin, this covenant can be none other than the new covenant spoken of by Jeremiah that eliminates sin.77 God tells the prophet that the former covenant that he made with Israel after leading them out of Egypt was nonfunctional because of the unbelief and disobedience of the nation (Jer 31:31–32). Echoing Moses’s own prediction in Deuteronomy 30:6 (“And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”), Jeremiah states that YHWH will make a new covenant (v. 31): “I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (31:33) and “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (v. 34). Moses tried to place the law within the Israelites’ hearts (Deut 6:6), but he could only demand and coerce them into imprinting it on themselves in an outward way (6:8–9). In the same manner, Moses established sin offerings (Lev 4:1—5:13, 6:24–30, 8:14–17, 16:3–22) and guilt offerings (Lev 5:14—6:7, 7:1–6), which could not ultimately cleanse the conscience (Heb 10:4). The result of this unatoned for sin would be exile, as Moses himself predicts in Deuteronomy 27–32. The word and works of the Servant will accomplish the end of exile, and therefore finally eliminate sin.

Moreover, the nineteenth-century Lutheran Old Testament scholar Ernst Hengstenberg, points out that the Servant does not merely mediate the covenant like Moses, but in fact is the covenant himself.78 He can do this because he is the one who has become the new Passover lamb and true sin offering (Isa 53:5, vv. 7, 10).79 He will for the sake of his people be “distressed” with their “distress” (63:9) (or possibly one could translate this as “afflicted” with their “affliction”).80 The Servant proclaims this universal Jubilee (Isa 61:2), based on the new covenant’s forgiveness of sins (Jer 31:34) rooted in his own person and work.81 Moses attempted to redeem Israel by doing this (Exod 32:31–32), but was unable.

1. Unless indicated otherwise, all biblical citations are drawn from the English Standard Version (ESV) translation of the Bible.

2. See Gerhard, On the Nature, 43–84; Hoenecke, Evangelical Lutheran Dogmatics, 1:403–505; F. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:193–265.

3. For the characterization of the writers of scripture as “Amanuenses” see Robert Preus, Inspiration of Scripture, 54; R. Preus, Post Reformation Lutheranism. This, it should be stressed (as Preus pointed out in his Inspiration of Scripture, 71–73), does not mean a theory of “dictation.”

4. FC Ep, Norm and Rule, par. 1; CT 777.

5. Luther writes: “All of Scripture is pure Christ” (AE 15:339).

6. See Barth, CD 3.1:76–94. Karl Barth’s term for a hazy area between myth and literal history.

7. LC 4; CT 747.

8. This seems to be the attitude of Paul Althaus. See Althaus, Das Sogenannte Kerygma. Also see the nineteenth–century version of this in Johannes von Hofmann, Biblische Hermeneutik.

9. Here we reject the critique of orthodoxy made in Prenter, Creation and Redemption, 87–92.

10. For an excellent exposition of what inerrancy means and what it does not mean, see R. Preus, “Notes on the Inerrancy,” 127–38. Preus notes that inerrancy as understood by the Lutheran scholastics does not mean crass literalism. Neither does it ignore historical context. What it does mean is that the Bible is truthful and trustworthy about what it teaches us.

11. This is why the hermeneutics of Lutheran orthodoxy insisted that the typological or “mystical sense” was actually part of the sensus literalis. See Dannhauer, Hernenevtica Sacra.

12. See von Harnack, Marcion.

13. ST 1a.1.1; BF 1:38. Aquinas writes:

Quia vero sensus litteralis est, quem auctor intendit: auctor autem sacrae Scripturae Deus est, qui omnia simul suo intellectu comprehendit: non est inconveniens, ut dicit Augustinus XII Confessionum, si etiam secundum litteralem sensum in una littera Scripturae plures sint sensus.

14. See Frei, Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative, 18–37. Frei mainly deals with Calvin, but mentions Luther as well. His point is that the sensus literalis is the simple grammatical meaning of texts harmonized with the location the divine author has placed it within a sequence of events in the large context of the history of salvation. Hence, mystical and typological senses of the Bible are not conceptualized as being in conflict with historical ones. Also see a good description of pre-critical typological interpretation in Eckhardt, New Testament in His Blood, 13–16.

15. AE 33:28.

16. This was the approach of the first Lutherans and the first Lutheran book exclusively devoted to hermeneutics. See Illyricus, How to Understand.

17. Frei, Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative, 66–104. Frei here describes the emergence of this sort of thinking.

18. Brenz, Personali Vnione Duarum; Chemnitz, Two Natures, 25, 217, 241–47. Also see Vainio, Justification and Participation, 136–40.

19. De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis.

20. See S. Preus, Shadow to Promise.

21. Pannenberg, “Dogmatic Theses,” 131–55.

22. See similar perspective in Steinmetz, “Miss Marple Reads the Bible,” 15–26.

23. N. T. Wright, Christian Origins, 3:720.

24. See Harrisville and Sundberg, Bible in Modern Culture, 30–43. Also see S. Preus, Spinoza and the Irrelevance.

25. B. Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 240–52.

26. See Hart, Beauty of the Infinite, 1–3. Hart makes a similar observation about the Nietzschean interpretation of Christianity.

27. See Plantinga, “Sheehan’s Shenanigans,” 316–27. Plantinga makes the point that Christian faith will necessarily influence what is possible and impossible in historical reality. That so many interpreters do not acknowledge this fact is astonishing.

28. See for example Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed.

29. John Milbank makes a similar point about sociology and modern political theory in relationship to Christian theology. See Milbank, Theology and Social Theory. Also see this critique of the modern liberal tradition in MacIntyre, Whose Justice?

30. See for example the wealth of data uncovered by modern biblical archaeology. Keller’s Bible as History is somewhat of an older study and therefore has some problems, but is generally still good. Also see a more up-to-date version in K. A. Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, 449–500. It should be born in mind that Kitchen is an Egyptologist and not a biblical scholar. His expertise is in the Ancient Near East and therefore he has more knowledge of the era than many modern biblical scholars. Kitchen observes that Wellhausen among the other founders of modern biblical scholarship insisted upon evolutionary models of the development of Israelite religion. He had no access to the majority of the evidence we have now which makes the historical claims of the Old Testament (though we might say scripture in general) seem very credible even without a prior commitment to scriptural inerrancy. Kitchen derides the fact that modern biblical scholars continue to hold onto the old, developmental models even with massive amounts of evidence contradicting them and validating the historicity of the Bible. Beyond the aforementioned studies of the Old Testament, we might mention N. T. Wright’s demonstration of the historicity of the Gospels in his Christian Origins, and also Richard Bauckham’s demonstration that the Gospels are eyewitness accounts in his Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

31. Marquart, Anatomy of an Explosion, 113.

32. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament; von Rad, Old Testament Theology. Beyond these two main approaches to Old Testament theology, see the following works: Anderson, Contours of Old Testament; Archer, Survey of Old Testament; Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament; Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty; Drane, Introducing the Old Testament; Goldingay, Old Testament Theology; R. Gordon, Christ as made known; Gunneweg, Biblische Theologie; R. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament; Hummel, Word becoming Flesh; Jacob, Grundfragen Alttestamentlicher Theologie; Kittel, Handbuch der Alttestamentlichen Theologie; Löhr, Alttestamentliche Religions Geschichte; Martens, God’s Design; Möller, Biblische Theologie; Niditch, Ancient Israelite Religion; Perdue, Collapse of History; Rendtorff, Canonical Hebrew Bible; Riehm, Alttestamentliche Theologie; Schmidt, Altes Testament; Schofield, Introducing Old Testament; H. Schultz, Die Offenbarungsreligion; Stade, Biblische Theologie; Watts, Basic Patterns; Westermann, Elements of Old Testament; Youngblood, Heart of the Old Testament; Zummerli, Grundriss der Alttestamentlichen Theologie.

33. Beale, Temple, 120–21.

34. N. T. Wright, Christian Origins, 1:263.

35. Ibid., 3:720. Wright lists the example of Gen12:2, 17:2–8, 22:16, 26:3, 26:24, 28:3, 35:11, 47:27, 48:3.

36. Von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 1:131.

37. R. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, 859.

38. Beale, Temple, 335–54.

39. R. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, 1127–32.

40. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:515.

41. Beale, Temple, 144–53.

42. See an interesting summary of their activity in Prenter, Creation and Redemption, 315–23.

43. Gerhard agrees that the two natures are spoken of in the protevangelium:

Wherever the sacred writings of the Old Testament discuss the Messiah, they almost always explain the duality of the two natures and the unity of the person in the same place, lest people deny the duality of natures because of the unity of the person or claim that there are plural persons in Christ because of the duality of His natures. In the protevangelium (Gen 3:15), the promised Messiah is called “the seed of the woman,” because, as true man, He was going to be born of the Virgin. To Him is attributed the bruising of the serpent’s head, because, as true God, He was going to destroy with His divine power the kingdom of Satan and restore the good things that had been lost in the fall. (On Christ, 35)

44. The older Melanchthon (in the heat of battle against Osiander) summed up the reasons for the two natures well:

First, note that inasmuch as mankind fell into sin, the one to be punished and to pay the penalty had to be a man, but one without sin. Secondly, in order for the payment to be equal and even better, the one who pays is not simply a man or an angel, but is a divine person. Thirdly, no angel and no man could have borne the great burden of divine wrath against our sin. For that reason, the Son of God, who is omnipotent, out of immeasurable love and mercy toward men, laid upon himself this great wrath. Fourthly, no angel and no man is able to walk in the mysterious counsel of the divine Majesty. The Mediator prays for all men and especially for every petitioner, and the divine Majesty hears their desires, and then acts accordingly. All this pertains to an omnipotent person. In the Letter to the Hebrews, when only the High Priest enters into the Sanctum sanctorum (Holy of Holies), when only the High Priest, and no one else, is allowed to go into the secret altar in the temple, it means that only the Redeemer is to be in the secret counsel of divine Majesty, and wholly see and know the heart of the Father. Fifthly, no angel and no man might have conquered death and taken life again, for this belongs only to an omnipotent person. Sixthly, the Redeemer is to be a power [kräftig] within us; he bears and sustains our weak nature, beholds the hearts of all men, hears all sighs, prays for all, is and lives in the faithful, and creates in them new obedience, righteousness, and eternal life. All this pertains only to an omnipotent person; Immanuel, i.e. God with us and in us. (Melanchthon on Christian Doctrine, 33)

45. Scaer, Christology, 34–35. Luther also makes the same observation in AE 15:318–21.

46. See thorough discussion of the messianic nature of the protevangelium in Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament, 1:17–30. Also see discussion in Leupold, Genesis, 1:163–70.

47. FC SD 3; CT 935.

48. Durham, Exodus, 303.

49. Ibid., 304–5.

50. See comment in Houtman, Exodus, 78.

51. Dozeman, Exodus, 81. This does not contradict the statement earlier that he took the name because he was “drawn out” (Exod 2:10). The Egyptian name sounds like the Hebrew word to draw out.

52. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:32.

53. Ibid., 2:30. Eichrodt gives the examples of Gen 31:1; Isa 10:3, 66:12; Prov 49:17. Also see discussion in Collins, “Kabob,” 2:577–87; G. Davies, “Glory,” 2:401–3; Gaffin, “Glory,” 507–11; E. Harrison, “Glory,” 2:477–83; Huttar, “Glory,” 287–88.

54. See Segal, Two Powers in Heaven.

55. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, 103–7; Gieschen, “Real Presence of the Son,” 105–26.

56. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, 74.

57. See discussion of the relationship of the Name and Glory in McConville, “God’s Name and God’s Glory,” 149–63.

58. The Angel of YHWH is mentioned in Gen 16:7–14, 19, 21:17–19, 22:11–18, 28:11–22, 31:11–13, 32:24–30, 48:16; Exod 3:1–7, 13:21, 14:19, 23:20–23, 33:14; Josh 5:13, 6:2; Judg 6:11–24, 13:3–23; Isa 63:8, 9.

59. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, 53.

60. See discussion in Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament, 1:126–28.

61. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, 76.

62. Luther agrees:

Thus it follows powerfully and irrefutably that the God who led the people of Israel out of Egypt and through the Red Sea, who guided them in the wilderness through the pillars of cloud and fire, who nourished them with heavenly bread, and who performed all the miracles Moses describes in his book, who also brought them into the land of Canaan and then gave them kings and priests and everything, is therefore God and none other than Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of the Virgin Mary, whom we call Christ our God and Lord . . . And, again, it is he who gave Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, saying, “I am the Lord your God who led you out of Egypt; you shall have no other gods.” Yes, Jesus of Nazareth, who died for us on the cross, is the God who says in the First Commandment, “I, the Lord, am your God.” (AE 15:313–14)

Among modern interpreters, there is of course the aforementioned Charles Gieschen. The following theologians and exegetes (particularly of the Lutheran tradition) have taken this position on the Angel of YHWH: Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament, 1:115–30; Hoenecke, Evangelical Lutheran Dogmatics, 2:170–73; Leupold, Genesis, 1:500–501. Hoenecke mentions the following Lutherans who hold this view: Kahnis, Lutherische Dogmatik, 1:396–97, 399; Keil, Bibelsk Commentar uber Genesis, 126; Philippi, Kirchliche Glaubenslehre, 2:19, 194; Rohnert, Dogmatik der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche, 145. Also, among older non-Lutheran interpreters, Gieshen (“Real Presence of the Son,” 106) mentions the following: Alexander, Isaiah, 2:394; Borland, Christ in the Old Testament; T. Hanson, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament; Rhodes, Christ Before the Manger.

63. Houtman, Exodus, 626.

64. Houtman, Exodus, 624–26; Noth, Exodus, 247–48. It should be noted that older interpreters saw the golden calf as the Egyptian god Apis. See Keil and Delitzsch, Pentateuch, 222. We cannot agree with this option for several reasons. 1. It would be ludicrous for the Israelites to engage in an outright abandonment of YHWH after they had seen his destructive power against the Egyptians. 2. Aaron’s statements on the matter suggest that the Israelites do not view themselves as abandoning YHWH: “behold the god[s] that brought [us] out of Egypt” (Exod 32:4). This would presuppose that they considered the calf a representative of YHWH and not a new god. YHWH had already previously identified himself and they were well aware of him as the one who brought them out of Egypt. One might object that if the Israelites had been in Egypt that they would be unfamiliar with western Semitic forms of religion. This is unfounded in that Egypt for much of the late Bronze Age controlled the Levant and influence between the two regions was significant. See discussion in Donald Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel, 125–241.

65. Houtman, Exodus, 626.

66. Rendtorff, Canonical Hebrew Bible, 61.

67. Cross, Canaanite Myth, 3–60.

68. See similar critique of idolatry in Romans 1 in Paulson, Lutheran Theology, 74–78.

69. See AE 15:333–35. Luther interprets Exodus 33 in an appropriately Trinitarian manner.

70. Noth, Exodus, 267.

71. Dozeman, Exodus, 81–82.

72. Houtman, Exodus, 733.

73. See a similar argument regarding the image of God and the golden calf in Fletcher-Louis, “God’s Image,” 85–88, 92–93.

74. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:41. In regards to the dwelling of the Name, Eichrodt notes Deut 12:5, 11, 14:23, 16:2; 1 Kgs 11:36, 14:21; 2 Kgs 21:4, 7. See Eichrodt’s comments on the Word of YHWH in his Theology of the Old Testament, 71–75. Also see von Rad on the prophetic and Deuteronomistic conception of the Word in Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:80–99.

75. Note that this is one reading. The LXX version states: “not an ambassador, nor an angel, but he himself saved them.” See discussion in Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, 116–19. Also see Barnes, “Veni Creator Spiritus,” 4. Note that both authors consider the MT reading that we cite above to be the authentic one. Interestingly enough, Barnes comments that the rabbis treated the two readings as if they were identical.

76. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary, 2:307–8. Delitsch also notes verbal similarities to the sprinkling of blood in atoning sacrifices.

77. Ibid., 2:179. Also see A. Pieper, Exposition of Isaiah 40–66, 187–88.

78. Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament, 3:221. Leupold makes a similar observation. See Leupold, Isaiah, 2:64–65.

79. Leupold, Isaiah, 2:229–31. Leupold agrees that this death is atoning, though he does not pick up on the Passover imagery.

80. Among older theologians, Nicolaus Hunnius interprets the verse as referring to the sufferings of Christ. See brief comment in Hunnius, Epitome Credendorum, 45. Also see Leupold, Isaiah, 2:342–43. Leupold understands these verses as referring to the exodus and not ahead to the incarnation.

81. Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament, 3:351–53. Leupold agrees that this is a reference to Jubilee (Isaiah, 2:321).