Dr. Meredith Kline, Prologue, Lecture 35
© 2012, Dr. Meredith Kline and Ted Hildebrandt
Grafting in of the Gentiles
God’s wisdom has proven the occasion for the
grafting in of the Gentiles. He moreover sees the dynamics of that working out
so that the incoming of the Gentiles will even serve sort of to incite the
jealously of the elect Jews who are still there. So Paul who gives himself to
his ministry with that in mind ministering to the Gentiles and yet with fervent
hopes that his work with the Gentiles will serve this other principle of
winning some of his kindred for whom he is ready to be anathematized from
Christ in hopes that he might save some of them. Notice that that’s Paul’s
expectations are not to save them all but he’s hoping that some of them in his
own generation will be saved and, of course, that’s all he’s anticipating for
the future until the Lord comes. But in the process of doing this the net
result is all the elect Jews who ultimately will be saved as well as all the
elect Gentiles who will come in along with all Israel will be saved. It doesn’t
say “and then when all the Gentiles have come.” It doesn’t say “and then all
Israel will be saved” as though there’s some distinct last little epic in
history when the gospel will have been preached to the Gentiles and all the Gentiles
who are going to be saved have come in and then all Israel as a nation. The
text simply doesn’t say that. It says “and so all Israel will be saved” as
part of this ongoing process whereby Gentiles are coming in and then also some
Israelites are coming in. In this way, the net result will be that all the
elect Jews and all the elect Gentiles will be saved. There’s not a word there
about some last generation of Israel on the grand scale where every last one
will be saved. That simply is not there.
The only thing that I say drives that kind of exegesis is an
inability of people to divest themselves of the idea of national or corporate
election. In other words, I wrote a critique, I don’t know if I have it here I
have it here someplace. There is a Calvin College New Testament guy who wrote Jesus
and Israel: one covenant or two what’s his name Hoverter? But it’s a
reformed Calvinistic exegesis. In my critique of him that’s precisely what I
thought he was doing. He treats the national election of Israel as a subset of
individual election. Individual election, of course, then is something that
can’t be lost and so he has assumed that the national election of Israel is of
the same kind. In other words, he doesn’t see it’s one of works and individual
election is one of grace. So he sees national corporate election as a subset of
individual election. Individual election is permanent, therefore, he says
national election is permanent and therefore that drives him to see that all.
You know what that amounts to is that God’s been a failure in every generation
up until then. If that’s what the promise really was that God was promising to
save every individual Israelite, if that’s what the promise was, then he has
failed in every generation to the end of history and good for him he makes it
in the final generation. That’s what this traditional view is saying. That won’t
do. God hasn’t failed in any generations. His promises have been perfectly
realized in every generation until triumphantly you can say at the end all
God’s elect people, the fullness of Israel and the fullness of the Gentiles, they’re
all there.
Van Gemeron has the same sort of problems in his book From
Creation to Consummation but I have that thing here someplace if I could
put my hand on it. Any other question meanwhile?
[Student question:]
[Kline’s response] Yes, it’s not just that one passage in
Zechariah that’s part of the whole hermeneutical question in all the prophets where
the prophets are speaking of the Messianic age and the coming in of humanity
lost in Christ being regathered to Christ where that development is portrayed
in what I call the prophetic idiom. This is where the Old Testament prophets
Zechariah and all the rest, there is nothing distinct about Zechariah, all the Old
Testament prophets when they are depicting the Messianic age do so in terms of
the contemporary scene which God had provided for the very purpose of being a
model of that. So they can use the contemporary situation as figurative
language to depict the Messianic realities. For example, in Jeremiah 31, we
discussed this business there when Jeremiah 30 speaks about, I’m going to make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. So there
he’s using the contemporary form of the covenant people there with the house of
Israel and the house of Judah. So when he wants to say the New Covenant people
he describes it in terms of the contemporary ones, the house of Israel and the
house of Judah. But when you come to the New Testament and they quote Jeremiah
31, they see that the fulfillment is in terms of the church here. So that gives
you, that’s just one illustration.
[Student question].
[Kline’s response] Not literal, no, the battle of Armageddon is a
good illustration of what we are talking about. The battle of Armageddon is
precisely the final attack of the world at large against Christ and his people.
It is not some literal mountain of Megiddo or anything like that in the land of
Canaan. It’s just another illustration where local scenery and the local
equivalent is Zion itself. See we discussed, Ron I don’t know if you were here
the nights we discussed Armageddon, were you? We were trying to show that
Armageddon is just a mount of assembly, it’s heaven and then its earthly representation
is Zion. The Psalms speak about Zion or the heights of Zaphon. It is the
mountain of assembly and so on. So where the Old Testament would speak about
the mountain of assembly it’s just another illustration of what I’m talking
about. It uses contemporary types in order to portray the Messianic realities.
So there is this prophetic idiom using contemporary equivalents in order to
depict the future realities.
[Student question].
[Kline’s response] I don’t imagine in every detail I would be in
agreement but the general thesis, yes, right. In our course on the prophets
that will be something then that is the basic thesis that we will try to
develop through the whole course is how to understand the language of prophecy.
What it amounts to then is this question of dispensationalism you know which is
literalist and instead of seeing the typological character of these things and
if we see the typological character then we’ll see that they are pointing
beyond themselves. They are not an end in themselves they are pointing beyond
themselves and for that very reason the prophets can use them as a little picture
of the other.
Well let’s see what will it be. We said something about why Israel,
and we said something about Romans 9-11. The last ten pages or so in Kingdom
Prologue will serve to raise a variety of questions so don’t expect to go
home before midnight. We’re going to continue right through until it’s time for
the prophets course next September.
[Student question].
[Kline’s response] Let’s see how I want to do this. Get some
inspired manuscript under my nose. Alright.
Patriarchal, Mosaic and Church Age
What we want to do here now is reiterate the overall purpose of
this course was covenant kingdom foundations. We were from the opening day when
we defined an overview of covenants that’s been our main interest was to see
the overall structure of how the covenants have unfolded and what their
relationship is one to the other and where we fit into the picture here in
church age and so on. One way now of getting at that relating to things we’ve
just been talking about would be to compare the patriarchal age. So here was
this one long development of the covenant of grace we’ve seen with its various
covenantal stages. So there’s the Patriarchal period and then there’s the Mosaic
period. The first age is in the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promises. Then
there’s the New Covenant, stage A, Christ’s first coming: stage B, Christ’s
second coming, all part of the New Covenant.
Now, the general point we’re going to be trying to make is that when
you set this thing up what you find is that the closest relationships run this
way. There is the present church age introduced by our Lord’s first coming. Stage
A, relates most closely in a variety of ways to the Patriarchal age in terms of
the eschatological stage of things. Then the eternal consummate stage of the
kingdom introduced by our Lord’s second coming relates especially to the Old Covenant.
Theophany in the various periods
We’ll examine this in terms of two or three categories. Let’s
begin with that of theophany. How does God manifest himself in these periods?
We can be thinking here both of the second and the third persons of the trinity.
How do they manifest themselves in each of these periods?
Let’s take the period of kingdom prologue Genesis 12-15, the
patriarchal age. Jacob later toward the end of his life sums up this whole
period in terms of the way in which the angel of the Lord has led him and the
others. So we have the angel of the Lord. What does that look like or what did
he look like? Well, he was not some dazzling, glorious epiphany. Here he comes
with two others and Abraham sees him and he entertains them and so one. They look
like a couple of regular human beings coming along, nothing dazzling about it. So
they entertain angels unawares and Lot in the valley does the same thing. He
entertains these heavenly beings unawares. But the angel of the Lord comes in a
non-glorious non-dazzling type of appearance all through this stage of things.
How is the Holy Spirit present during the patriarchal period? Now
we have seen that the Holy Spirit is the King of Glory. He is the manifestation
of God’s glory. He is the glory that builds and constitutes the very heavenly
temple. He will appear later on in the shekinah glory, the cloud of glory,
during the Patriarchal period--not yet! He is the Spirit-within not the Spirit-glorious
and outward manifestation but the Spirit powerful and inward for the sanctification
of God’s people. So as you read the Patriarchal narratives the work of the Holy
Spirit is not visible on the surface, it is manifest only through the results
of his presence in the lives of his people. So you have a tremendous amount of
emphasis on Abraham as one who is brought to faith in spite of all kinds of
obstacles and tests of his faith. Here is God’s Spirit working in him bringing
him into this faith which is imputed to him for righteousness and so on. Likewise
in the case of Isaac especially in his patient readiness to be offered on the
altar in the case of Isaac but especially in the experience of Jacob and the
transformation that is registered in the change of names from Jacob, the
supplanter, to Israel, the wrestler with God. That tremendous transformation
from the grasping young guy who’s ready to do everything he can to get hold of
the birthright and so on to the one who is helpless and defeated in the
wrestling act but yet prevails by hanging on and trusting and calling upon the
Lord. He has a tremendous transformation, a Damascus road conversion experience,
along the way at Bethel and so on. In connection with the staircase to heaven
and so on and he makes his commitment there which he renews when he comes back
to Bethel and so on. But there’s the Holy Spirit working within individuals and
the text is very much concerned to bring that out and perhaps besides these you
get wonderful transformations brought out in the lives of people like Judah
later on and in Joseph and so on.
The Holy Spirit in the various periods
But the corporate thing also as well, now in the book of Acts
we see this same kind of working of the Holy Spirit within. I like to compare
what’s going on the book of Acts is what’s going on corporately with Genesis.
Early on you have all of the jealousies in the family of Jacob among the twelve
sons and with the wives and the jealousies among wives carry over into the
jealousies among the children. All the kids hate Joseph for the father’s
favoritism to him and so on. You know they’re ready to kill him and they sell
him into slavery and all of this. They lie and break their father’s heart with
their deception. So there’s all this lack of love and concern for one another
and for their father. By the time you come to the end of the book of Genesis there
is quite a change corporately in the covenant family. There is now concern for
the feelings of old father Jacob. There’s a readiness to work together for the
good of the family, especially in the part of Judah there’s a readiness to
sacrifice himself for the sake of Benjamin who replaced Joseph in his father’s
affection. It’s a different community all together. That’s the way the Holy
Spirit is evidenced within the Patriarchal period as the One who is working
invisibly but powerfully within not outwardly. So that’s the Patriarchal
period.
Spirit in the Mosaic Period
Then you move into the Mosaic period. Now let’s start with the
Holy Spirit. Now you get in the glory theophany that judgment day has come.
When Moses becomes the first stage in the coming of the kingdom. The book of Genesis
is the kingdom prologue, in Exodus the kingdom comes--stage one. Gospels/New Testament
kingdom come stage two--the real thing. But already here kingdom come and when
kingdom comes especially down here at the end of history it’s with a revelation
of the divine glory of the glory-Spirit. So right away in connection with the
exodus we have this phenomenon remerging now here that we had back in the
Garden of Eden already at the original Armageddon. Here is the glory of God
that crowned the mountain of God in Eden and which crowns again Sinai, which
crowns Zion, but it’s already present at the exodus in leading them through the
wilderness, protection to the Israelites, devastating blaze of glory to the
Egyptians and so on. But it definitely is an outward manifestation which is
compatible with the outwardness of the kingdom as we’ll see it as the kingdom
is now come.
The Angel of the Lord
The angel of the Lord the second person of the trinity. Yes, he
is still there and still the angel of the Lord but now in association with the
glory and that is the connection, that’s the difference. In the Patriarchal
period it’s the angel of the Lord apart from the glory-spirit. From the exodus
on it’s the angel of the Lord in association with the glory theophany and
that’s the whole thing on which the problem in Exodus 32 and 33 changes when God
threatens because of Israel’s failures from henceforth He’ll send his angel but
his own phoneme, his own presence, his own glory-Spirit will no longer be with
them. So what God is saying I’m going to turn back the clock to the period
before the kingdom had come and now the angel of the Lord will be with you but
not my glory presence. Moses doesn’t want to turn the prophetic clock back. The
kingdom has come and he prays that it may continue that way and God relents and
says, “Ok, yes my glory Spirit will indeed continue with you.” However, God
knows that this presence of his Spirit is something that threatens Israel
because they’re so prone to sin and the presence of his glory right in the
midst of them is going to be devastating. So he says, “Yes, the glory-Spirit
will attend the angel but nevertheless I’m going to distance myself from the
camp.”
So we read about when the tabernacle is set up and the glory-Spirit
is enthroned there that is something which is outside the camp of Israel. But
nevertheless that’s the form that the Spirit takes in that period.
New Covenant and Theophany
Ok that brings us to the New Covenant and what do we have?
Well, we have to distinguish stages one and two. As I said the connections are
between the Patriarchal period and the church age here in the first coming of
our Lord. Our Lord comes in his first coming in a state of humiliation. He’s a
genuine human being. That’s the way he appears which is more like the angel of
the Lord back in the patriarchal period just a human being. How does the Holy
Spirit appear? He has some particular signs right away at Pentecost but the
standard throughout he’s invisible. We don’t see him here but the same things
we said there he evidences himself as the One who is working powerfully within,
doing the same kind of thing to individuals and to the covenant community
corporately as he did back there.
So he evidences his presence in connection with the preaching of
the gospel by being the power that transforms, that regenerates, sanctifies and
so on in individuals. He breaks down the tensions and the oppositions that
exist between the brothers in Jacob’s family back there and especially as we
were just saying He breaks down the tensions between Jews and Gentiles between
Greeks and barbarians and all of these various social ethnic geographic
tensions the Holy Spirit is at work breaking them down establishing unity,
love, in the community of faith in the world but within, not outward glory.
But now the second coming of Christ then what was typified back here
was indeed pointing to what happens there. Here again the person and the third
person of the trinity are very closely associated as the angel and the shekinah
back there. Now we get the thought of Christ coming invested with the glory-Spirit
coming in the clouds of heaven with all of the angels of God but definitely it
is a manifestation in glory. So this is the changing structure of the
eschatological stages of history.
Organization of the people of God in the
various periods
Now
along then with the form of God’s manifestation we have let’s say the polity,
the form of organization of the covenant community itself. How are God’s people
organized? Well, how are they organized in the Patriarchal period? They are not
yet kingdomized, they’re just a family living as a family indeed as resident
aliens as a family. The natural family authority structure is the covenant
embedded in that no special operatives, no special priesthood, nothing like
that. There’s the patriarchal leadership and so on but just as the natural
leader of the family community. There is no special priesthood or anything like
that, just a regular authority structure of the family. The patriarchal thing
provides the family as the altar community and their worship and witness at the
altar. So that’s what’s going on there in the Patriarchal period.
Then you come to the Mosaic period and now you get the kingdom. Now
the covenant community becomes a theocratic kingdom in a particular covenant
land. So as we just saw there is the outward pomp and glory. So there’s the
appropriate connection between the way in which God manifests himself in glory
and the nature of the people themselves to occupy in power and glory a kingdom.
So they exercise their power and they drive out the Canaanites and they keep
out the enemy and they suppress false religions of all this kind of thing. That’s
the form of them, it’s a typological of the kingdom of heaven, of course.
But meanwhile, when you come to the church age, you come to the end
of that kingdom stage and God’s covenant community is no longer an earthly
theocracy. It’s more like a family again but not quite. Now there is, of course,
some distinctive officers. There are the elders and deacons and so on. There’s
an ecclesiastical overlay of authority in alongside the family. So it isn’t
just a natural family authority structure which is one and the same as the
covenantal authority structure.
The family is still respected. Indeed as we saw in terms of why
baptize children. The family authority structure still figures in especially at
that point for determining membership within the covenant but then here you
have all these multiple families within the covenant structure. We have a
special overlay of ecclesiastical figures now which give character to the
individual local church and which also provide for an overarching unifying of several
churches here and there but it is definitely the form that we know as the
church today. But it is a purely cultic community it is not identifiable with
external geophysical realities of our terrain. But that will be the case when
our Lord returns in glory and then, and only then, at the return of Christ
which is the consummation of the world then and only then as Amillennialism
holds will the prophecies and types of the kingdom of glory be realized in the
coming of the eternal kingdom of glory.
People of God relate to world in the different periods
But the alternating phases shows that you just aren’t working
with some simple continuities here you have to be aware of the distinct phases
of things. Then finally, I don’t know quite what to call this, but the category
of: how during each of these phases do the people of God relate to the world
around them? That’s something that’s already been implicit in what we were
saying about the form of the covenant people. But now how do the patriarchs
relate to the world around them? Well, they relate to the world around them as
good common grace people should which is to be cooperative with the unbelievers
and so on and to recognize the rights of the unbelieving. They do not now force
their kingdom claims by rigor and military means or violence of any kind upon
the world around them. They co-exist with the unbelievers here in the world.
They are a distinctive community they are an altar community. They set up their
altar and that bears as their place of worship and witness. It does witness to
the fact that they claim ultimately the world for God but it does not mean that
they are immediately involved in the carrying out of the final judgment which
will grab the world. No, they get along with the world. They make their
covenants with the unbelievers with the Canaanites, with the Amorites, right
within the promised land itself. They make covenants with them.
So we have in Genesis 14 that Abraham has his Amorite confederates
with whom he engages in battle against the kings from the east who include even
other Semites. So you see here you have the Semite, the Hebrew Abraham, with
Canaanite military forces auxiliary to his own, fighting against Semites. The
stranger would see, yes he’s doing that. He’s especially concerned that his
Amorite confederates should get all the proper spoils that are coming to them.
He wants a piece of land. How do you get a piece of land? Well at
this stage of the game, it’s a common grace deal and you buy it. So he makes
his deal, Genesis 23, with Ephron the Hittite. The way it works out in terms of
the other real estate laws of the day, if the Hittite laws from another period
were reflected on what was going on in Abraham’s day and it’s likely they did.
What it means is that the result of Abraham’s buying this piece of land from
Ephron the Hittite meant that more than ever Abraham became obligated to the
local rulers of the place to provide for them various services taxes and so on.
In other words, he had to now render unto Caesar, more clearly than ever before
what belonged to Caesar. He just couldn’t just seize the land from Ephron the
Hittite. He had to buy the whole piece of land not just the cave at the end. As
a result of buying the whole piece of land, he got stuck with the taxes and so
on which the original owner would have had to maintain if there had been a sub-division
of the thing and so on. Our lawyer maybe could tell us more about this later
on.
But this is the basis then they would have at times then for what I
call pilgrim politics. They were strangers. In the promises the kingdom was
theirs but only in the promises. The present reality was they walked by faith
and they were looking for the fulfillment of the promises in God’s good time.
Meanwhile pilgrim politics they recognized that they were only resident aliens
and by the time you come to the end of the book of Genesis all they have is a
little parcel or two of land. In fact, by the time they come to the end of the
book of Genesis, they aren’t even in the land at all anymore they’re down out
of the land. So much for the patriarchal period, it was a time for recognizing
they were strangers and pilgrims.
Kingdom Comes: Exodus
What a difference then when you come to Moses. Now you’re
beyond kingdom prologue now you’re at kingdom come. When kingdom comes all of
that common grace get along with your neighbor stuff is ended. Now you don’t
purchase something from Ephron the Hittite. Now you kill Ephron the Hittite
and take his land from him alright and so forth. Now you don’t make covenants
with the Amorites and so on. Explicitly you must not covenant with them that
would be to get yourself into the position where you were enticed by their gods
and so on. Of course, Israel proceeds to do that. But the law of God for this
age was no such fraternizing and covenanting with the enemy because this was
the day of final judgment on Canaan typologically. They are no more resident
aliens. Now they are the proud possessors ,now the triumphant possessors of a
land not the resident aliens. Now we triumph here and we set up God’s victory
stele in the midst of this land we claim it in the name of our God. We fight his
holy war.
What a difference! Talking about standards of conduct they simply
aren’t the same. What God had mandated there was one thing, what God is
mandating here is another. Now what God is mandating here is what the theonomists
want us to do in every place. This is what I’m getting at in part here. The theonomists
say that what happened here this ethics of holy war intrusion and theocracy
they say is the standard which ought to be applied here because it is the
standard for everywhere. Now what I’m trying to get at is what was the standard
here was not the standard before that and therefore there is no reason why he
would have to argue that it must be the standard after that. God is the One who
determines the times and the seasons. He does determine them and he
distinguishes them and there are very sharp differences and that’s where I’m trying
to get at here. I’m trying to make as plain as can be the contrast between
these successive thoughts. What happened in the patriarchal age by divine
command was completely different from what happened during the conquest
period. So there is not some abstract standard which applies under all
circumstances irrespective of whether it’s a period of common grace or whether
it’s a period of intrusion of the kingdom. You got to get the overall picture and
understand the structure of it. The theonomists simply do not have as we said a
concept of common grace to start with. They’ve got, as we were also saying, no
concept of typology for another thing so that they takes the type as something
which are continuous with what’s going on in the church age and but as a matter
of fact, it’s not.
Church and Patriarchal Age
The Church age now is once again just like the Patriarchal age.
The Mosaic kingdom age will be picked up in due time but not now. Now this is
where you and I live. We’re right here and we want to know how we should be living.
What is the function of the church and it is our function to be theocatizing
the nations of the world, no. The New Testament applies that language of
pilgrims to us. We are a pilgrim people in the world that’s the way the church
is defined. Revelation 12, “We are the church in the wilderness.” We are not
the church that has passed over the Jordan and has taken triumphant possession
of the kingdom land. We are the church in the wilderness. We are the church
fulfilling the great commission. We are an altar community, worshipping and
witnessing to the world warning of the judgment to come but not acting as the
agents of God to kill off the mission field. Instead, we’re evangelizing the
mission field and living according to the terms of common grace. As we said
when we were discussing the state we should be living as responsible citizens,
praying for the welfare of the state, acting cooperatively with it, being good
Samaritans and loving our neighbors and so on. That’s the way we should be
functioning in this world because we are like the Patriarchal Age.
Now with the understanding that the day is coming that common grace
will end, and the unbelievers are no longer our neighbors. Now it is time for
the Lord to return in judgment and to introduce the eternal kingdom. He will
come in glory invested with glory in order to establish the eternal kingdom. That
will involve then that kind of intrusion that takes opposition out of the world.
So that’s the kind of basic pattern that we should be aware of and this will be
the final thing which sort of flows out of this. We end up here. Here is the
church and here is Moses and the law. The law that constituted them and sent
them out doing all this holy war kingdomized type of thing.
Moral, Ceremonial and Civil aspects of the Mosaic Law
So are we Christians living in the church age related to our--put
it the other way, how does the Mosaic law relate to us? Is it all normative?
Is any of it normative for us today? I’m glad I have only one minute or two
left so I can suggest an approach and I don’t have to answer any of your tough individual
questions. But so the traditional way to do it is to break it up into moral,
ceremonial, and civil. So what laws in the Old Testament should you regard
as still an obligation, as a standard, that your conscious should be bound by?
Well we are told then that there’s a moral element in the Mosaic legislation, not
just the Decalogue, but the legislation as a whole. Of course, those moral
principles are principles for us today.
Then they talk about ceremonial which moves one thing quite away,
of course, of the cultist, the cult and the temple and the worship connected
with the altar and so on. So there are ceremonial laws then and we, of
course, are not bound by those. So Jerusalem is not the center of worship and
there’s not an earthly temple. Christ has fulfilled these things. They are
heavenly realities the true sanctuary the place of the true altar the location
of the one and only true priest and so on. So those laws are not binding upon
us we simply recognize they have been fulfilled. They have pointed to Christ.
Then there are also civil laws, so called, that have to do
not with the cult but with the rest of the social political society of Israel.
They’re the usual approaches within the civil law there’s the general equity
which I think is just another way of saying there are some permanent moral
principles that come to expression within the regulations governing the civil
society. So those permanent moral principles of general equity are still to be
observed in the context of civil life. But then there are other specific
features of Israel’s civil society then that are not necessarily binding on any
particular government today.
Kline’s cult and culture
approach
That’s
the traditional approach and I don’t think it’s quite adequate especially
because of a couple of features but the way I would suggest then that we set
things up is rather like this that we right away distinguish between cult and
culture. Then have we can speak about a third one but it’s not very important--three
categories. The first one corresponds with the usual view permanent moral
principles alright. There are some permanent moral principles that are in the
Old Testament law. Things that have to do both with cult and culture both of
them.
What are some permanent moral principles as to cultic context worship
and so on? Worship the true God is a permanent principle in connection with
worship--worship the true God. Worship him exclusively and purely. So some
permanent principles don’t change. In the area of culture are there some
permanent moral principles that we can apply. Yes, there are all kinds of them.
We can talk about eating and clothes and find some general principles in terms
of eating and drinking some are permanent like moderation. It would be very
difficult to define what moderation is but nevertheless there’s that principle.
In clothes, that’s part of culture, modesty or something like that in dress. Farming
here’s the work part of our general culture—in farming general principles of
industry. I suppose environmental stewardship in things of that kind would be
general principles that we could apply. Other areas that we should know, honor
the rights of our neighbors to his life, to his wife, to his property and to
his name. So there are general principles of all kinds that relate to our
cultural activities and our social relationships and so on.
Now the second category then instead of calling it ceremonial which
tends to identify itself only with the cult unfortunately. I would rather call
it typological. Now typological does not immediately then reduce itself to cult
but type you know is a broader thing which includes culture. In other words,
it refers not only to the temple but it also refers to the kingship and the
court and the whole land of Israel. You see that’s the advantage of this
approach. It’s especially going to be right there that this system I think
brings out things in such a way as to show the problem of theonomy because where
the theonomists fail is precisely in recognizing the typological nature of some
things which are in the area of culture, namely, the kingdom and so on, as we
just saw. So here typological features as to respect of the cult, obviously the
temple in Jerusalem, the altar, the Levitical priesthood all of those things
are typological of the cult. But then typological in the area of culture is the
whole business of the theocracy. So all of that which made the Israelite
kingdom a foretaste of the final judgment and of the eternal kingdom of God all
of that would belong in this area of typology.
Now regarding the moral principles there you should be concerned
whether it is cult or culture. The typological features you do not have to be
bound by because they have fulfilled their purpose and are no longer retained
whether in the area of cult or the area of culture. So I say this is the
particular point where this way of getting at it is more helpful. It prevents one
from falling readily into the mistake of the theonomists who don’t recognize
that this area of the theocracy and all of the special provisions whereby the
king, let’s say, is involved in supporting the temple. So because the king
supported the temple there, theonomists are saying well the leaders of our
civil governments should be supporting the Christian religion here. That’s
making a permanent moral principle out of something which was only a
provisional typological arrangement. That’s the kind of thing we are interested
in here.
Now all along the line of culture with permanent moral principles
there are typological things. Be moderate in what you eat--permanent moral
principle. Clean and unclean stuff that kind of distinction that’s a typological
cultural thing. Modesty in your dress is a permanent moral principle. Typological
thing in your dress is to wear little tassels at the bottom of your garment. It
is typological and not binding on you. So all along the line in the area of
culture there are going to be typological features which are no longer binding
on you today.
Most especially this business of the whole theocratic thing with
its holy war, with its enforcement by the sword of the first four laws of the
Decalogue and indeed of a true religion and that whole thing is no longer
normative in our present common grace situation. That’s the main point I
wanted to make here.
The other category we can quickly be done with along with permanent
moral principles and these temporary typological features that are no longer
binding, there are things that we might call technologically incidental
features. The classic illustration of it is if you’re building a house and you need
to build a fence around the top of it so that people don’t fall off. That’s
because their form of architecture then had flat roofs where the people would spend
a lot of time. So it was a matter of protecting life and they were required to
put a fence or parapet around it.
Transcribed
by Josiah Lero
Rough edited by Ted Hildebrandt