Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we do come in praise and thanksgiving. We come to bless your name for your goodness and love toward us. We come to thank you for being our God and for being our Redeemer. And Lord, we come knowing the wonderful fullness of your work of grace in Jesus Christ our Lord. There is so much more than we can understand or take in. And Lord, we do pray for your forgiveness for the times when we have been hard of heart to receive the message of your grace. and for the times when we have resisted the power and the working of your word in our lives because we have been so content with our own ways and designed to walk in our own paths. And Lord, we do pray that we may this day hear afresh your word. We pray that the power of the Spirit may apply it to our hearts and minds We pray that our minds may be girded up for obedience and service, that we may be prepared to serve you with all that lies within us. And so we come this morning, Lord, together, just a little group of us, but we would come together in the power of your Holy Spirit and seek your blessing upon our meeting. We ask that you will be with us now and strengthen us, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Now this morning I just wanted to summarize some of the things that we've been looking at in our studies about Christ in the Old Testament and then I want to have some time for discussion and questions because my goal for the session this morning is to try to encourage you to be doing this sort of thing for yourself because I think there's a bit of a danger, you know, that your impression will be after these sessions together, there's a danger that your impression will be, well yes, Mr. Connie certainly did seem to have a lot of connections there in seeing Christ in the Old Testament, but that's all over now and I'm sure I wouldn't know how to see it. And see, that would be counterproductive. It's not a point that I was able to show you some. The point is, are you able to see them? Do you have the methods for approaching it so that you can see Christ in the Old Testament legitimately? I'd like to use a couple of illustrations, and then I thought that you could propose passages in the Old Testament, and then we could take a look at them by asking, you know, how would you see Christ in this particular passage? And then if we do that, maybe we'll see some of the principles to work on as we look at a problem like that. So, first of all, I thought we would turn to the book of Genesis and the 22nd chapter, just as one example to get us going in this way, the book of Genesis and the 22nd chapter. And it came to pass after these things that God did prove Abraham and said unto him, Abraham, and he said, here am I. And he said, take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son. And he clad the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder, and we will worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spoke unto Abraham, his father, and said, My father? And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of. And Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. And he said, lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh. As it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the seashore. And thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto the young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba, and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba." Now, in a passage like that, Let me ask you first, what kind of application have you usually heard with regard to that passage? Maybe we'll get different answers on this, but what's the point of the passage? What sort of lesson or application do you think would usually be drawn from it? Why do we have the passage in the Bible? We've heard some preaching on it, I guess. Yes? A test of faith. That's right, exactly. A test of faith. And is that legitimate? Well, obviously it is. At the very beginning of the passage, God did prove Abraham. Now, in all study, in all analysis, whenever we try to do any careful analysis of anything, what do we always find ourselves doing? Well, we always find ourselves asking questions like this. What is most like this? And how does this differ from what it's most like? You do that if you look at a flower, you know, and you can't identify it, you say, well, what other flowers are most like this? And then how is this different? Is this a field daisy? Is it like all the other field daisies, you know, or is this a different kind somehow? So we're always classifying things in order to understand them better. Well now, that's a legitimate approach in our understanding of the scriptures too. You ought to say, well what other passages are like this? And then how is this different, if it is, from other passages that are similar to it? So when you read in this passage that God did prove Abraham, you begin to think, are there other instances of God's proving? in the Old Testament? Well, sure there are. What are some of the others? Noah, that's right. Noah is proved in his faith. But I'm thinking of places where it's directly stated. I read you one earlier this week. Job's proving of God. That's right. His faith is tested. I was thinking of Israel, you know, in Deuteronomy 6, excuse me, Deuteronomy 8, where God says that He proved them in the desert to see if they would obey Him or not, to see if they would respond to Him or not. And so, you see, God does prove His people. He does test them. Well, now, when they are being proved, what is being proved? What is being tested? Yes, basically their faith, whether they believe God, whether they trust God. Now why was this proof of faith so severe for Abraham? What made it so severe? Right, he was to be the father of all nations and you remember Isaac had been born only after those many years of waiting and then finally the son was given by a miracle, you know, that Sarah had a son in her old age. Here are these promises of God that it seemed impossible and finally the promises are fulfilled and now God says take the son of the promise, the one that's given. What else does this passage heighten with regard to the proof of Abraham's faith? What does it say right there in the first part, verse 2? Right, your only son whom you love now there's in the first place your only son has a particular ring to it because Isaac wasn't his only son in the sense he did have Ishmael already you see from Hagar so Isaac is the only son in terms of the promise He's the only son in God's reckoning, you see. He's the only son who can be the heir of the promise of God. So it is a reminder of the promise. And then, whom thou lovest, you see. Obviously Abraham loved Isaac. take your only son whom you love so it's a very severe test of faith and then at the end of the passage Abraham is blessed because he did obey God's voice because he did believe God and he did obey him And of course, his faith is shown by his obedience. And remember, attention's called to that in the New Testament, isn't it? In the book of James. James says, you say you have faith without works, and James says, well, I'll show you my faith by my works. And he said, Abraham showed his faith by his works. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, but Abraham had shown that he believed God in offering up Isaac, and being willing to offer up Isaac. So this application of this passage that's usually made is entirely legitimate. It stresses the faith aspect. Abraham's believing. It was a test of faith. Abraham was responsive in the test. He was obedient. He was willing to offer up his only begotten son. Now, let me ask you another question. Is that everything that the passage teaches? How do you know that it's not everything that the passage teaches? It's certainly, it's the beginning and the end of the passage. Scripture itself calls attention to it. We sure can't miss it. Is there anything else that is called attention to right in this passage? Yes? It shows that under any circumstances God is able to deliver. Right, right. You see, and how is that expressed in this passage, that God can deliver? How is God's salvation shown in the passage? What calls attention to it? Right, right. And you see, in many passages in the Old Testament, there is some name or some brief saying that acts almost like a title for the passage, you know. And here, and in some of the various altars where Abraham worships God, the altars are given names. And often the name is the name of God. God is called upon by a certain name at a certain altar, like Jehovah Shaddai or El Elohe Israel. See, these are names of God given at times of worship that celebrate God's deliverance in some way. Now, what's the name given to this place? Jehovah Jireh and you see the word Jireh comes from a Hebrew verb that means to see and in this form of the verb it really means the Lord will see to it which is like our word provide but you see a little more nuancing to the Hebrew word because the Lord will see in the sense of see to it And that idea of the Lord seeing runs all the way through here. You see when Isaac says, where is the lamb for the sacrifice? And Abraham answers that God will see to a lamb for himself, for the sacrificer. God will see a lamb for the sacrifice. And then in verse 14, and Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will see, as it is said to this day in the mount of the Lord, it shall be seen. but seen in the sense of provided, seen in the sense of revealed, provided. As I say, it's a little more nuanced, the word, but here's obviously another heart of the passage, okay? Now, do you see what those two sides of the passage are showing us? Do you see that from the standpoint of faith, you have the subjective response to the history of redemption, right? From the standpoint of the Jehovah-Jireh, you have a further revelation of God's work in salvation. But it's God's work that Abraham is responding to. So that when Abraham's faith is being tested, and you see the test is focused in that question of Isaac. Because Isaac on the way up the mountain, It says, where is the lamb? And you know, of course, it's a beautiful passage just from the standpoint of literature. It's overwhelming, you know. You see Abraham going along and you get these details as to Isaac actually carrying the wood, you know. He's a young man carrying the wood and here's Abraham with the fire in his one hand, the torch, you know, and the knife in the other hand. He's going off with the sacrifice. And then you think what's in Abraham's heart, you know? And then Isaac says, my father, and he says, here am I, my son. Then where is the lamb? And then when Abraham says, God will provide a lamb for the sacrifice, you see how Abraham's faith is working. See, God will see the lamb. You don't see the lamb, but God will see the lamb. God will see to the lamb. Now, what's Abraham thinking? Well, in the book of Hebrews, it says that Abraham believed God, and he was even ready to believe that God could raise his son from the dead if necessary. See? He'd given him Isaac when Isaac didn't exist or couldn't exist, so now if he's got to be offered as a sacrifice, he could still give him back from the dead. Yes? Well, that's demonstrated by what he says as a servant, because in Verse 5, he says, we'll go and worship and we will return to you. Yeah, that's right. And probably that's what the author of Hebrews is thinking about when he says that he expected him, you know, if necessary, to be raised from the dead. But now think about it. You see, Abraham doesn't know anything about a ram caught in the thicket. So when he says God will provide, God will see to it, what he really means is You, my son, are God's provision. God sees you, and God will see, too, this sacrifice in His provision. He has provided you. Now, of course, there's much more to think about if you're going to interpret this passage, because remember, God's command to Abraham is not, go murder your son. You know, the great Danish theologian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard has written about this passage very extensively. You know, somehow it all got caught up in his relation to his own father and so on. And, you know, that business is some frightful vow that his father had made one time and all this. And Soren Kierkegaard deals with this as though the command were nothing but a simple breach of ethics. See, where religion seems to run counter to ethics. He says, go kill your son, go murder your son. But you see, that's not the command. It's not the command, go murder your son. It's go offer your son as a sacrifice, which is quite different, see, because the sacrifice is being offered up to God. And then that makes you think, where else in the Bible do you see the life of the firstborn in some sense jeopardized? Moses' sons, right. They aren't circumcised, and there's a threat against Moses' sons. That passage often isn't interpreted that way, but I think that's the right interpretation. It isn't Moses who's being threatened, but his sons' lives are being threatened because they're not circumcised. That's that curious, difficult passage, A Bridegroom of Blood, Thou Art to Me, you know, where... I think they're Moses' sons. Oh, oh, oh. I'm sorry. Well, yes. I would say I was entranced that, you know, about that one. OK. All right. Yes, or in the Passover, you see, there's the threat of death to the firstborn. Now, I admit this gets a little complex because you have to stop and analyze what the whole theory of sacrifice is in the Old Testament, and what kind of sacrifice it is. And this is a sacrifice of a whole burnt offering, basically. That is, that's being offered up to God, that he can put the claim upon it and receive it. And you see, God can put his claim upon something in judgment, as well as in service of thanksgiving. And in this case, there's the element of judgment, there's the element of expiation, the shedding of blood, that Isaac deserves to die. And God can only require that, of course, because all men deserve to die. And so there's a deep meaning underlying all of this. that if there is to be atonement for sin and it can't be the atonement of the blood of bulls and goats that finally the sacrifice would have to be the sacrifice of the seed of the promise that the seed of the promise can be the redeemer and only the seed of the promise can be the redeemer so there's a mysterious rationale to all of this that of course all of which points forward to Jesus Christ and You see, but my point in looking at the passage this way with you is to call attention to the fact that in the passage itself there are these two elements. There's the testing of Abraham's faith and there's the witness to God's provision. And you need both to understand the passage. Grace and faith. Grace, God provides the sacrifice. Of course, ultimately, Isaac doesn't have to die. The ram caught in the thicket is the substitutionary sacrifice for Isaac. So that gets very much like the Passover, where the firstborn deserves to die, but the Passover lamb is offered in the place. But here, the two are brought together, the son and the lamb. And therefore, you know, when John the Baptist proclaims Jesus, he proclaims him as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. And then when Jesus is baptized, the voice from heaven says, this is my only begotten Son, this is my beloved Son. And therefore, in the New Testament, the Son and the Lamb are drawn together. They're seen to be one. So that Jesus Christ is both the Beloved Son and the Lamb. Now there are all sorts of connections here between the New Testament and the Old. Jesus is called the Beloved in the New Testament, for example in the book of Ephesians. the Greek term akapetos, that word beloved is the very word that's used in the Greek version of the Old Testament here, take thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest. And so this is the origin of the word beloved as it's applied to Jesus Christ. He is the beloved, as Isaac was Abraham's beloved, so Jesus Christ is God's beloved. As Isaac was Abraham's only begotten son, Jesus Christ is God's only begotten son. And you see, this is what is so amazing that when you turn to the New Testament, you see that God's love is seen in precisely these terms. For example, in Romans 8.32, he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Now there, obviously, you'd never understand that verse without the account about Abraham. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Now, what's the language of the father who didn't spare his only son, but delivered him up? Of course, it's Abraham. He didn't spare his son, he delivered him up. I mean, he was willing to deliver them up. So, and that leads us into very deep waters indeed, because it shows us what lies behind the whole picture of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ. You see that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is the gift of the Father. Romans 5.8, but God commendeth his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Now that's a very remarkable verse, because you look back at the preceding verse, verse 7, for scarcely for a righteous man will one die, for peradventure for the good men, someone would even dare to die. Now you'd think against that background that 8 ought to read, but Christ commended his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, he died for us. Do you see the logic of it? You wouldn't die for a bad man, certainly, but maybe for a good man, someone would even dare to die. And so then you think the verse would go on, but Christ commended his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, not good men, but sinners, he died for us. But notice how Paul switches it. He doesn't say Christ, he says God. But God commended his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Now notice that Paul's thinking goes entirely counter to the objection that you sometimes hear to the doctrine, the New Testament doctrine of the substitutionary sacrifice. You sometimes hear it said that that doctrine shows a vengeful God offering up his innocent son for the sins of others. And how can God be righteous if he's offering up an innocent man, his innocent son, for the sins of the guilty? then God is seen as a kind of tyrant and Christ loves us and Christ comes to die for us and He satisfies the vengeance of this wrathful father and thereby procures a grudging forgiveness. God has to forgive this because His Son so loved us that He gave Himself for us. But you see, Paul says the reverse of that. God commendeth His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The death of Christ is the expression of the love of God. Now, how does Paul get there? And of course, it's in the verse I already mentioned, in Romans 8.32, where he says, He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? what that really teaches us is that the book of Genesis is necessary to understand really what is happening at the cross of Calvary you see, God is infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth the Schroeder Catechism amazing definition of God well, God is really like that, yes But what does God do? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And you see, you might think that That verse measures the love of God in a way, doesn't it? How great is God's love? For God so loved, how much? And the verse tells you, that He gave His only begotten Son. Well now, we know that the love of the Father for the Son is through all eternity, don't we? Because we're told that the Son was in the bosom of the Father before the world was, in the first chapter of John. That's the intimacy of the Father and the Son. So the picture of God through all eternity in the Bible is not a picture of God as an abstract being. It isn't just God, you know, it isn't just essence or pure being with a capital B or something like that. Paul Tillich talks about the depth of being, that God is the depth of being. But what Tillich is doing is abstracting God after the fashion of German philosophy. See, God is not an abstract being with a capital B, nor is he the depth of being. God is personal, and therefore eternity is pictured in terms of personal relationship, a relationship between the Father and the Son that's a relationship of love. So we say we have a definition of love. It's the love that God the Father has for God the Son through all eternity. And that love is perfectly reciprocated. It's a fellowship of perfect love before ever the world was. So then you think John 3.16 ought to read, For God so loved his only begotten Son that he gave him the world. Is that biblical? Yes, yes. Look at the end of the third chapter of John, and you find that stated. It is, it's a biblical statement. In the same chapter, if you please, at the end of John 3, verse 35, excuse me, at the end of John 3, verse 35, the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. That says it, doesn't it? The Father loves the Son and gives Him everything. Okay, so there's John 3.16. For God so loved His only begotten Son that He gave Him the world. But of course it isn't that. It's God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And that's the sort of thing you can hardly even meditate about. You know, in the Mount of Temptation, Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he'd give up the Father. Jesus wouldn't do it. Now, did the Father fail in the temptation that the Son succeeded? Did God the Father want the kingdoms of this world so badly that He gave His Son? Did God the Father say, well, I love the Son a lot, but boy oh boy, when I look at the glory of the world, I can't resist it, I gotta have it, and so I'll give up my Son to get it. Now you're all looking shocked, and that's great, and it's a shocking thought, but the only reason I wanted to shock you with it is to drive your mind in the opposite direction. Because you have to see that in John 3, 16, the world isn't pictured in terms of how great it is or how good it is. The world is pictured in the opposite sense in how bad it is. It isn't how big the world is that the world's so big that to get it, God was willing to give his son. It's the very, very opposite. It's how bad the world is. The world deserves nothing but God's wrath and curse. There's no reason why God should desire to do anything to this world except to judge it. and yet God in love gave his only begotten son and of course it means something to each of us individually to realize that that has application to us that God's love is seen in the gift of his only begotten son now how do you know that? how can you picture that? how can you understand that? You see, we can't imagine what God's like, we don't, there's no way that we can imagine the eternal being of God, the absolute being of God, and yet we know that on the cross of Calvary, in the darkness, when Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? We are being taught in scripture that that cry lays hold upon the heart of God in a way that goes far beyond anything that could have happened when Isaac spoke to Abraham, right? Isaac says to Abraham, where is the lamp? And Abraham says, God will see to it. Well, Abraham didn't see to it. God had to see to it. And God did see to it. God provided the land when he gave his only begotten son. The price that Abraham didn't have to pay, God the Father paid. And he paid it in the darkness of Calvary. Now you see, in the theoretical sense, in the philosophical sense, we say God as an absolute infinite being can't suffer because he doesn't have parts or passions like men. And that's a true statement. That's true. But in spite of all that we know about God as an infinite being, we also are taught by scripture that God paid the price, that God gave his son. And if you please, the son that he gave was his eternal son. Because when John 3.16 says God gave his only begotten son, what does give mean? Not just that he gave him on the cross, but he gave him at Bethlehem. He gave Him by sending Him into the world, didn't He? And He gave Him, so the Son He gave is the Eternal Son. The Eternal Father gives the Eternal Son for the sins of men. He gives Him in His human nature on the cross. Now, of course, Jesus Christ in His eternal nature cannot die. He dies in His human nature. But the one who dies in His human nature is the Eternal Son of God. Now that's all beyond our understanding, you know. But we must be careful not to deny things in scripture just because we can't understand them. And so Genesis 22 becomes very important for us. Because without Genesis 22, you can't understand Romans. Without Genesis 22, you can't understand John 3.16. Without Genesis 22, you can't understand what we're being taught in the New Testament, that God the Father gives what Abraham could not give. Because, of course, Isaac was not a perfect sacrifice. Isaac was not a lamb without blemish. Isaac could not really be offered as a sacrifice. The one who could be offered as a sacrifice is the true seed, the true Isaac, Jesus Christ, who is the promised seed. And the Apostle Paul makes that plain, that the promise to Abraham was to Abraham and to his seed, and not to seeds as of many, as Paul says, but to seed as of one, which is Christ. So Christ is the seed, the seed of Abraham, and he is therefore the one who is at last offered for the sins of men, because Jesus Christ is the true Isaac. Okay, now you see, the principle I wanted to bring out in this passage, in looking at Abraham, the principle I wanted to bring out is that when we put the Old Testament scriptures in the history of redemption, it's just inevitable that you're going to have two aspects that will come to the fore. One, what God is doing. And that's always His great work of grace, you see. That's what He's undertaken to do, to save us from our sins. So there's what God is doing, and then there's the response to what God is doing. And God the Father gives His only begotten Son. God offers Him up. And Abraham, in faith, is responding. And he's testifying. It's God who provides. Jehovah-Jireh. So it's always grace, and it's always faith. Now, let me say why I think that's important. You see, if you don't get this principle, then it may be said that in trying to interpret the Old Testament scriptures in the light of Jesus Christ, that we're, well, sometimes it's said we're making it too complicated, sometimes it's said you're doing away with the moral lessons, You see, sometimes people will say, well, if you try to take all this business in Genesis 22, if you try to take it all typologically, or sometimes people will say allegorically, you're making it all into an allegory, and if you're making it all into an allegory, you're destroying the real religious experience of Abraham, see. What we really need to learn from Genesis 22 is that Abraham was obedient. He obeyed God in the toughest possible situation. And I've heard people say this to me. You don't want to allegorize it. You don't want to make it all into some kind of a parable. It was real. Abraham, there was his son and he was ready to kill him and he's ready to obey God even in doing that. You see, well, I hope you can see now that to bring that kind of objection is really a misunderstand. Because Abraham isn't given to us just as an example of obedience, Abraham's given to us as an example of faith. And what's faith responding to? Why, of course, the initiative of God in salvation. And you've got right in that passage, Genesis 22, the name Jehovah-Jireh. And what does that say? Does that say Abraham can stand the test? No, it says God will provide. So it's stressing the objective in salvation, what God's doing. And then the subjective, what Abraham's doing, that's faith. And you see, if you destroy that, then that's when you wind up with moralism. Then you get men being saved by their own works. Then you put all the emphasis on what we do. And you necessarily do that if you just cut out what God's doing. And so all I'm pleading for is that we interpret all the scriptures, first of all, in the light of what God's doing, and then in the light of our response to what God's doing. And that response must always be, first of all, a response of faith. Because we must be accepting what God's doing, believing what He's doing, and responding to what God's doing. Okay, now... We had a long example. And I wonder, is the coffee ready? Do you think it stopped working? I've had experience both as a parent and as a teacher. And so I'm used to various audience responses. OK. If your mouths are sufficiently scalded by getting down the coffee so you get back in here. And it will be ready to go ahead. And I just wanted to express again to Sandy my appreciation for her typing all this stuff up for us and getting it all. And I see already, you see, I see things I should have changed. But one thing I'd like to add at the very end, which I should have. I don't know how I ever managed to leave it off. I guess I was concerned at first not to hit you with too much heavy stuff at once. But there is a book that ought to be added by all means to that list of readings. And whoops. There's a book by Gerhardus Voss called Biblical Theology. Now, Voss never intended that this be published. These were just classroom, he regarded them as rough classroom notes, you know, that he didn't regard as a finished work. And it has some theology of the New Testament in it, but the New Testament theology kind of trails off because they were just notes he had. But the Old Testament theology is relatively complete in this book. But the reason I'm mentioning it is because it's excellent. There isn't anything better in English for studying Old Testament theology than Voss. It's kind of tragic in a way. Voss was a teacher at Princeton years ago in the days of Warfield and Hodge and so on. And and yet his tradition completely died out at Princeton. And it was continued to some extent in Westminster Seminary because John Murray and Cornelius Ventile and Stonehouse had all studied and been taught by Vos. Really, there's only been one time and place when this study of the Old Testament went forward in a truly scholarly way, and that was in Holland, in the last generation. And there was a time when, in Holland, this kind of preaching was really a commonplace in the Reformed churches of Holland. But after World War II, it died out in Holland as well, which is part of a very sad scene, I think, of a great drop in the strength and power of the reformed churches of Holland after World War II. You see, in Holland, you had conservative men. There's always a difference between Holland and Germany. In Germany, in the German universities, you had very radical scholarship. In the Dutch seminaries and theological schools, you had conservative scholarship much later. And so this approach that I'm presenting is often called biblical theology. Now it's called biblical theology, not just in the sense that it's theology that's biblical, it's called biblical theology in a special sense, that it is the kind of theology that studies the Bible in the epochs, in the periods of the history of redemption, what are usually called dispensations. And you see, apart from this kind of study, if you don't look at the periods, the epochs, the dispensations of the history of redemption, then there's the danger that, excuse me, that you'll look at the Bible as though it were just a treasure chest of a lot of little gems. where gems of truth are stored, you know, to use the phrase from the hymn. And people just reach in and pull out little gems here and there. And so that approach is often called the approach of proof texting. Now, in a sense, there's nothing bad about proof texting. If you want to establish a certain doctrine, you quote a verse that shows that the Bible teaches it, that's fine. But there is a problem if you don't pay attention to the context. If you just reach in and pull a verse out of context. Well, the context doesn't mean just the context in the paragraph. The context means the context in terms of the history of redemption, the whole structure of redemption as it goes forward. And the reason the Scofield Bible made such a tremendous impression among American Christians, in my opinion, is that the Scofield Bible came along with attention to these dispensations which had been largely ignored in classical theology. Now, there was some attention given to them, but not really enough. And so the Scofield Bible called attention to things that people hadn't really realized. And once you look at the Bible, you see that it's there. It can't be denied. God gives his revelation in seasons, in periods, in terms of a structure of the history of redemption. Now the problem with the Scofield Bible was that while it calls attention to the periods and the development, it doesn't pay enough attention to the continuity. It puts so much emphasis on the distinction that it's inadequate with reference to the continuity. And so you get something in the Scofield Bible, the old Scofield Bible, it's been fixed up, I'm glad to say, in the revised one, but in the old Scofield Bible, it said regarding the Lord's Prayer that Christians can't pray it because if you were to pray it, you would be praying on legal ground. the petition, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. The old Scopia Bible says a Christian can pray that. Now you see that shows just a horrendous misunderstanding of the prayer and of the whole structure of biblical theology. Because you see what it assumes. That there was once a time when you could pray that. There was once a time when you could bargain with God. There was once a time when you could say to God, because I'm so good as to forgive, therefore dear God, you ought to forgive me. Now there are different emphases. Paul talks about it, how the law was added to the promise in order to show us that we can save ourselves. But more than that, the law is just and holy and good. The law sets before us an example of how we are to live. So it's much more, the truth is much more, shall I say, complex, interwoven, designed, The design of the history of redemption is much more beautiful. The Scopia Bible is an oversimplification, and it chops things apart too much. What I'm trying to say is, in the history of the Church, there haven't been many times or places When this insight as to the need for the periods of the history of redemption, along with an understanding of the continuity of the history of redemption, there haven't been many times when that was appreciated. And the time when it was best known, best done, best understood was in Holland, and there's very little of that literature that's available in English, I'm sorry to say. One representative of it was Claus Skilder. And so you have a beautiful trilogy on Christ and his trial, Christ and his sufferings, and so on, by Skilder, which is in English. Now, Skilder is a kind of heavy writer in some ways, but he certainly has these insights. And then there was a very wonderful teacher called B. Holward, who has a beautiful little book called Beginning with Moses. That's the name of it, a little book, Beginning with Moses, which is... And this, of course, he's quoting from the Luke 24, Jesus beginning with Moses and all the prophets explained all things concerning himself. And Howard has written many books that are very good, but these have not been translated at all. And so that's why I recommended that book by de Croft. Now the book by de Croft is a... he was just a Dutch preacher, he wasn't a theologian or anything but he was preaching and teaching for people who didn't have a lot of theological background although in his day in Holland the average nine-year-old knew more theology than most Bible Institute graduates in the United States today But be that as it may, Hoberder wrote a book for high school, young people really. It was Verbondsgeschiedenis, he had a little book. And that book has now been translated into English, and it's Promise and Fulfillment, and it's come out in three volumes. And the man who translated it is Evan Runner, who is a professor at Calvin College. And I really love Evan for doing this. a good friend of mine, we were raised in the same church and all that, we've known each other all our lives but I really respect him for doing this because he's busy with philosophical concerns all the time but here he stops to translate a book that's just sort of high school level stuff but the reason he's doing it is because he wants to see come into this country some of the fruit of that study of the Bible that flowered in Holland in the last generation and that's why he translated the Hof's book and it's It's very good. And Mrs. Runner is herself a native of Holland. And between the two of them, they're a fine translation team because they both know both languages extremely well. They both speak both languages very, very fluently. So they can do a good job of translation. Now, I recommend that because it gives you a little bit of fruit of this insight. Okay, the Crawford's, you know, his last generation, there's scholarship that's gone beyond what he knows, and he doesn't always get it right and all that, but still it's a great book to look at. Boy, our time's going away while I'm telling you all these stories. I'm sorry. That was mostly to tell you don't forget your hardest boss in biblical theology. How about some questions? A couple before we go. Yes, Sandy. How are we to view the apocrypha? How do we use it? Yeah, that's a good question. It isn't inspired, of course, but it's very helpful in understanding the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament. And, you know, it's part of God's control over all of history to make things ready for the time when he would give the New Testament. Now some of it represents a legitimate development out of the Old Testament revelation. And you see that in the Qumran community scrolls too. A lot of that is legitimate reflection and development. It goes, it's almost like a straight line right out of the Old Testament. People have thought about, they've meditated on it and they've had perceptions and they sort of carry forward an understanding of what the Old Testament is teaching. But it also involves a lot of miscarriage, you know, of misunderstanding. And then it involves, it's influenced by other things, by cultural, obviously, cultural things from various sources. Some of it from the East. There are influences from the same source as Persian Zoroastrianism, you know, that begin to influence some of these books. And then there are other influences of the Hellenistic character that influence these books. So they're important for a scholar in order to get the background out of which the New Testament comes. But you really need to use a book to introduce it that will tell you about the dates of it and also about how these documents were composed. It's a complicated field because, for example, the testaments of the twelve patriarchs are often quoted. You see, there's supposed to be a testament from each one of the patriarchs, but these documents of the twelve patriarchs have been influenced by Christian writing later. I mean, the copies that we have of them are influenced by Christian amendments and additions and modifications. And so if you quote from some of them, it looks as though it's all right on, you know, that here was all things in the New Testament, already in the Old Testament, already in the apocryphal times. And of course, there's a difference between the apocryphal books and the so-called pseudepigraphal, pseudepigraphical books, pseudepigrapha, which are the books which like 1 Enoch. You had a question and I was when I was talking about Scofield Bible. OK. Yes. And there are two passages here that I've been wondering about for a long time. You might be a good person to ask. In verse 11, the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. And then later in the chapter, verse 20, but he said, you cannot see my face for no man can see me live. Also in the New Testament, it says, for no one can see God. In Hebrew, where it says face-to-face in English, in Hebrew it says mouth-to-mouth, which isn't exactly the same thing. Mouth-to-mouth means direct communication, but it doesn't necessarily mean a vision. That helps a little. You would say that therefore we're trying to direct. That's right. Yeah. For the mouth to mouth. Now you got me. I forget the Hebrew word for mouth. I have to go back and look it up. What is it? Somebody ought to help me. OK. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry. I was just trying to think about the whole context of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Could we say in afterthought that God, even though he could have asked for it, never would have ever asked of Abraham's son because through his faith Abraham had already been declared righteous before he asked for the sacrifice? And then there's some other things, you know, you're looking ahead to Christ's sacrifice. But, I mean, can we, as an afterthought, can we think that God probably never would have intended Isaac's sacrifice because he had already declared Abraham righteous? Yes, I think what you would have to recognize is that the Lord is doing this for the two reasons, you know, one to see if Abraham is willing to offer his son in the sense of giving his son back to God, which is a test of his faith. And this is the only means by which that could be done, you see, by way of sacrifice. Then the other point is, of course, to anticipate the fact that the seed will at last have to be offered up. But you're right that there is no way that Abraham, that God could have actually permitted Abraham to sacrifice his son because that would have As you say, that would have been contrary, really, to the point of it. You see, I think, however, you must remember that Abraham did often offer sacrifice. The sacrifices were repeated. I'm saying there's a definite difference in the character of the sacrifice between the sign and the act. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's right. And you couldn't, God couldn't have taken his son just as on the same level as an animal, we'll say. That's right. Yeah, I think that's right. Okay. Yes. Interpreting the words and literature, and by making Christ in the Holy Spirit, came across Proverbs 8, 22, which says, we're creating a new beginning of this world. The first of these acts of old. Ages ago I was put up and I talked about being brought forth and the other words, I think the other word was born. And the idea of Christ being the personification of waking. How do you interpret the idea that the Lord created me at the beginning of this world? Yeah, that's a good question, and especially good because I think it shows us how we interpret these things. You see, you always have to ask first, put a text and say, what does it mean? And you interpret it in its context. Now, what is the writer saying there in Proverbs 8? Well, he's saying, what he's really communicating is this. God made everything in wisdom. See, that's what he's really saying. He's really talking about wisdom as God's attribute. He's saying, God created the world in wisdom. And he's really saying how great God's wisdom is to make all the world in wisdom. Now he's chosen a poetic way of describing that. He's chosen an imaginative, allegorical if you please. He's saying it in a kind of allegory. He's saying let's just suppose that we think of God's attribute wisdom as though it were a person. Well then, if we think of God's wisdom as a person, then certainly that person was beside him in all his work of creation. So then, that person had to be there before ever creation was there, okay? And then he says, you know, how shall I express that? Well, that wisdom then must have been not just created of God, but actually maybe even begotten of God. See, a closer relationship than just made. Or if it was made, it was made at the very beginning. It had to be made before anything else, because God made everything in wisdom. And it's interesting that he doesn't say what any Greek would have said. That wisdom was from all eternity, and that God came along. See? The Greek would have said in the beginning was reason. And then the gods were made. See? But it doesn't occur to him to put it that way. That God is first and then God makes wisdom. See? That's interesting. But then he thinks, if you're going to say that everything was made in wisdom, then wisdom had to be made before anything else, so then wisdom must be the first of all God's works. Now it's all poetic, it's all descriptive, and you have to appreciate it for what it is. And you see, all the time I'm not asking you to force New Testament concepts on the Old, I'm asking you to see and have a real feel for what it says. But then, when you have that literary expression, and there it is, then you see in the New Testament, it gets a kind of unpredicted fulfillment. In other words, it's a kind of super fulfillment. Not only do we see the wisdom of God in the New Testament, but lo and behold, the wisdom is not only personified in a literary structure, the wisdom of God actually is personified, and there is the one who is begotten of God who is the wisdom. Now, we learn a lot more, of course. We learn that Jesus wasn't begotten the first in time, although the New Testament calls him the firstborn of creation, and calls him that against the background of that passage. But you see, not on the understanding that Jesus was actually made in time before the universe, but that Jesus has the relation to the Father, not of a creature, but of the eternal generation, which is the orthodox doctrine on that subject, that Jesus is the son in relation to the father, but that he is the eternal son in relation to the father. It's important in interpretation always to see what the Old Testament passages actually say, and there are many instances of what might be described as super-fulfillment. in the sense that there are figures of speech in the Old Testament that are sometimes pointed to in the New Testament in terms of direct application. For example, when Jesus drinks the vinegar on the cross, and that's the fulfillment of the psalm, in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Well, if you look back at the psalm, it talks about eating gall as well as drinking vinegar. And so you say, you see, a wrong mindset on it, if you're looking for if you sort of got some kind of principle of literal where possible or something like that, then you may go back and say, it may be a problem for you. You might say, well, if it says he drinks vinegar and he drank it, then when did he eat the gall? See, well, that's a mistaken understanding. It shows your approach and interpretation is wrong because actually the point is that the psalm describes the agony of a sufferer who is despised and rejected and so on and in whose need he's given the opposite of what he really ought to get. So then when he actually does drink vinegar, do you see what I mean? It's just kind of a super fulfillment. Jesus didn't have to ride on an ass, in a sense, to fulfill the Old Testament. He could have been a meek and lowly king without literally riding on an ass. And he certainly didn't literally have to ride on an ass's coat, because that's a figure of speech. on a colt, the foal of an ass, but actually, and the way it actually worked out, there were two animals involved, and Matthew calls our attention to it, and it's a kind of super fulfillment. Every once in a while, God takes a red marker and underlines something, so we won't miss that it's getting fulfilled. And that's, you see, that's the kind of principle that operates here. Yes, sir? Referring to what you said yesterday about wisdom, perhaps you could say something more about the relationship between wisdom and science. Originally, wisdom and science, there wasn't a great difference, I believe. The wise people always were the scientists who were already in the, you see, the whole development between the Romans and the people in the 8th century, well, only in the proper war, there was really some progress, you call it progress, destruction. For the rest, it all remained the same. Only after the 19th century this whole progress started and developed its own life. A fantastic progress. The father of my wife, who became nearly 100 years, the grandfather of my wife, was witnessed as a baby the first train home because of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. It's unbelievable what suddenly happened. Not only in the field of science, where we are more and more doubting if we can master this science, but also in the religious field. This has its direct effect to the industrial proletariat. And the Church, I don't know how far this is in America, but in Europe, has for the greater part lost the industrial proletariat. The greater part of these people are not going to church anymore, are non-believers. Of course Marxist has come. Marxist is already more or less on its way out. But the church of Christ has not come, has not stepped into the wilderness, becoming a vapor. So this whole science is becoming something dreadful, not only the threat which it is to human mankind in a physical way perhaps, but also its nuclear dangers and many other dangers as well. But also science has brought a lot of people of the industrial society away from Christ. And of the intellectuals as well. And of the intellectuals. There are lots of people who say the Bible is not any more applicable in the modern age of science. I don't belong to them, but I know many, many people I know. They just say this and it is very difficult to predict. They just put the facts in front of you and say look here, what's happening? Now this is really worrying and shouldn't we as Christians have an answer and really study this matter and say what is the answer and get the guarantee about what we should do before, well, this catastrophe is coming. Yes, Charles Malick, I think, is going to be in a dialogue at the 12-15 hour at the Church of the Savior. And I had the wonderful privilege, the fellowship people arranged for us to have dinner with Malick on Friday or whenever it was. He said something that I think applies exactly to what you're talking about. He said that he sees the problem in the way in which the Christians have lost the universities. And he says, how will they ever recover the universities? Is there ever a chance that Harvard College or Princeton College, Princeton University Is there ever a chance that they could get back to the basis for which they were founded? Because they were both founded to be places of wisdom, you see, and now they've been places of secular knowledge. And he says he doesn't see any possibility of such a thing. So the only other thing he sees to do is to try to establish Christian institutions, Christian universities. You know, even this little C.S. Lewis Institute, which is nothing in the eyes of the world, you know, just a few little lectures here in the summer. But maybe it points to that's not your reaction. It's through the year, too. I might join this perspective that I'm only participating in the summer. But, you know, something that might not seem much in the eyes of the world, it can yet have tremendous importance, especially if it could lead to such a thing. You know, Carl Henry and some others have been interested in an institute for Christian studies that would maybe develop into a university someday. There was an abortive attempt to have a Christian university about a generation ago. Many of the leaders of Westminster Seminary were involved in it and actually a property was purchased and all that. They were going to go ahead and the support wasn't there and the whole thing fizzled. So it's very sad that we haven't done that and then what to me is sadder by far is what happened to the Free, the Free University in Amsterdam, which there was a Christian university and a big one and a significant one and with all its departments and everything else. And what went awry at the Free University? Well, it succumbed to the pressures of the society, to this very pressure, the split between science and religion. And the religion didn't help because some of the people in the theological faculty almost led the way in the collapse. And they didn't fight it, they joined it. Actually, right today, it's the philosophy faculty in the Free University that has, as I see it, the strongest grip on the Christian faith there. Of course, I'm sure there are Christian scholars in some of the other departments, but the tone in the Free University is not really Christian, not evangelically Christian. I don't know, you ought to see that free university. It's a big university. It's very, very important in the life of the nation. Holland isn't a big country, and the free university is a large university. And you consider that that's only left its Christian moorings within just a part of this last generation. It's been 20 years, see? And so that shows that just starting now that was started, that was founded by Abraham Kuyper when he was, you know, he was a great statesman. He was the prime minister of Holland and he was a minister of the gospel and he believed the faith and so on. So it's. I think the answer to your question, you know, I can't give it and we can't give it here. I think it has to be given by Christian leaders seeing the importance of reuniting in a Christian perspective the study of science and technology. Well, I guess we have to quit. It's nine o'clock. Appreciate this.