Dear Chad,

You make some excellent points Chad, that would cause me to adjust the
way I state my case, but the thrust of my argument remains.  You are
craftily maintaining far too much continuity in my opinion and will
resort to double, triple and probably quadruple meanings to avoid Paul's
clear statements of discontinuity.  You overemphasize the presence of Law
in the New Testament, and ignore, and even insult the use of Paul's
statements in Romans, Galatians, Colossians, and etc.  When Paul says,
'you are not under this, but you are under this' he sounds awfully
'Greek' doesn't he?  Let alone the fact that your flexible hermeneutic
makes all human communication basically meaningless.  The progress of
revelation demands that we give Paul some priority in my opinion.  But
then again you may give him priority and not give him priority in the
same sense so it is futile to argue the case.  By the way are we talking
about Buddah or Christ?  In answer to this question I suggest a single
meaning hermeneutic.
I am going to take a break from posting for a week or so.

Grace to you in Christ,

Mike 
PA

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 06:52:55 -0800 (PST) "Chad R. Bresson"
<breusswane@...> writes:
> >> Chad writes:
> >> Actually, it's not my language.  It's Christ's, it's John's, it's 
> 
> >> Paul's, 
> >> etc.  It's exegesis of John and Paul who are both telling us that 
> 
> >> Christ is 
> > the New Torah.
> >> 
> > Mike writes: A proof text of this exact point would be nice.  
> "Christ is the New
> > Torah"  Inform me.  
> 
> I think I have already provided the texts.  But here's the rehash:
> 
> 1. Logos in John 1 presumes "Torah".  John develops this in John 
> 1:14 & 18 where
> "grace and truth" (personified by Christ, this phrases has double 
> meaning and just
> as easily could be rendered "Grace and Truth") is set over against 
> the Torah. 
> John's understanding of Christ as Torah isn't as obvious in 1 John, 
> but it's there
> in "God is Light" (see John 8:12; 1 John is a commentary on John's 
> gospel), a
> forensic "standard" that is set over against the darkness of the 
> antiChrists...
> Christ as the forensic advocate (1 John 2:1) is both judge and 
> standard by which all
> holiness is measured.
> 
> 2. The picture Paul "paints" of the presentation of Christ at his 
> second coming is
> the same picture Moses describes in the presentation of the law at 
> Sinai.
> 
> And the one "text" I have not provided are the Transfiguration 
> narratives which are
> the presentation of Christ as the New Torah (Moses and Elijah 
> represent the Law and
> the Prophets).  Again, Sinai is in view with the mountain, the 
> cloud, the voice, the
> light, etc. and Jewish readers of the gospel narratives would have 
> immediately
> understood that the Transfiguration was Sinai II.  In fact, Peter's 
> reference to
> booths comes straight from the Torah... he understands the Sinatic 
> significance of
> the Transfiguration.
> 
> > define Torah
> 
> Torah generally is the pentateuch, specifically the Law.  
> Connotatively, it
> represents "law".
> 
> > show where the Bible teaches that Christ the Second Person of the 
> Trinity is
> >somehow ontologically the thing that can only merely represent Him, 
> or reflect
> >Him.  
> 
> This represents a vast hermeneutical gulf that I don't have the time 
> to bridge.  The
> two biggest issues I see here is understanding 1. the Incarnation in 
> relation to
> redemptive history, revelation, and the second person of the 
> Godhead, AND 2. the
> function of biblical theological typology in redemptive history.
> 
> >Undoubtedly you will want to change the definition of "is".  
> 
> Actually the Incarnation forces us to rethink our literalist 
> perception of "is".
> 
> >It is hard to argue against because it doesn't abide by the 
> definitions of
> >words and their correspondence to the "things" they signify.  
> 
> Words throughout the entirety of the canon come loaded with double 
> meaning because
> revelation is always pointing beyond the narrative to something 
> bigger and better in
> the person of Christ.  Christ is the center of revelation.  
> Redemption is the reason
> revelation exists.
> 
> >You say the
> >Law foreshadowed Christ, and then Christ is that Law.  Is He that 
> which
> >merely foreshadows Him?  
> 
> So... Christ isn't himself The Truth?  Christ isn't himself The 
> Life?  Christ isn't
> himself The Light?  Christ isn't himself The Wisdom of God?  These 
> aren't merely
> metaphors.  These aren't merely literary conventions employed by the 
> canonical
> authors or even Christ himself.  Biblical authors see the 
> Incarnation as an
> embodiment and "personhood" of the ontological and philosophical 
> (over against
> Greeks who think in terms of transcendent ideals).
> The endpoint of the Law was/is Christ himself.  The law was never an 
> end in itself. 
> The law was never meant to merely be merely an ontological "idea" or 
> reality.  It,
> like everything else in the Old Covenant, points forward to a 
> "person".  The Law,
> just like The Truth, just like Wisdom, is first and foremost a 
> person.
> 
> > It will not due to say "both" 
> 
> But this is precisely our hermeneutical gulf.  It is "greek" to 
> suggest either/or. 
> It is jewish to say both/and.  The canon is Jewish and almost 
> exclusively written to
> Jewish by Jewish authors with a Jewish mindset.  The moment we begin 
> incorporating
> "either/or" in our hermeneutic is the moment we begin imposing our 
> Greek
> subconsciousness (we are greeks by culture; we live and think like 
> greeks) onto the
> text.
> 
> > Mike writes:  I think you raise some excellent points here.  
> However in
> >our attempt to combine the presence of the Torah in the New 
> Testament
> >with clear and numerous passages which declare our death to that 
> Torah,
> >or more properly, nomos, I do not think that we should resort to 
> saying,
> >"OK therefore Christ is that Torah or a New Torah".  
> 
> If we don't, then we must be CT.
> 
> >That equation does
> >not fly and it does not acknowledge the level of discontinuity 
> called for
> >in the light of Paul's statements like the one in Romans 6:14.  
> "Sin
> >shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but 
> under
> >grace".  
> 
> You've just proven my earlier point.  This declaration of 
> discontinuity completely
> ignores the presence of Torah in the NT by simply dismissing it.  I 
> agree with CT's
> that such "exegesis" isn't dealing with the entire text of the NT 
> canon.  The CT's
> have a right to complain that we're shoving large portions of text 
> under the rug
> just to prove a point.  It is picking and choosing which texts it 
> arbitrarily
> highlights as important.
> 
> >also in my opinion in
> >regards to its content.  
> 
> And this kind of discontinuity cannot be sustained in the NT text.  
> Christ himself
> brings the Torah into the New Covenant when he places the two 
> summary statements of
> the Torah front and center in the New Covenant ethic in Matthew 
> 22:38, 39.  What I
> see happening with the Romans 6 view being presented is forcing 
> Matthew 22 into the
> Romans 6 "grid", when in fact that is the faulty kind of exegesis 
> that CT's protest.
>  Romans 6 is rewriting not only Matthew 22 but the other numerous 
> passages in which
> the Torah is brought into the Old Covenant.  Both Romans 6 and 
> Matthew 22 s must be
> allowed to stand on their own merits... and the answer must lie in a 
> third
> alternative... Christ as Torah.  
> 
> CT's dismiss the death of the Old Covenant.  Dispensationalism 
> dismisses the Torah
> in the New Covenant.  Both fail to see it's not either/or.  Both 
> miss Christ as
> Torah.  The Old Covenant is dead.  The Torah is incorporated into 
> the New Covenant. 
> What has changed is the Christ event.  There's a new reality that 
> has broken into
> time and space, changing everything in its wake.  The Torah changes 
> its form because
> in fact the Torah all along had Christ as its object.
> 
> > Mike writes: I agree commands are not antithetical to grace.
> 
> I'm not sure, then, about *why* the protest.  The very word 
> "commands" invokes many
> of the same realities as the Torah.  Both have the same 
> lawgiver...which is another
> hermeneutical gulf.  We cannot treat revelation as if the revelation 
> itself is the
> reality.  "God said it, that settles it", while pragmatically true, 
> is an invalid
> hermeneutic IMHO.  The mere scribbling on a tablet come from God is 
> not in and of
> itself the reality.  The scribbling is merely a visible manifestation 
> of what is
> already true (we tend to forget that *writing* is concept/truth in 
> symbols.. words
> represent something else).
> 
> Christ's commands in the NT are as much Torah as the Torah itself 
> because both
> "flow" from the same source and lawgiver.  So when Christ repeats 
> his own words that
> he gave on Sinai centuries before, it's logical and theological 
> nonsense to suggest
> the commands themselves are different.  The same person is saying 
> the same thing. 
> The Christ event has changed our relationship to those commands to 
> be sure... we owe
> our obedience to a Person rather than a tablet.  But the reality of 
> the commands and
> their "force" are just as real.  Which means, once again, that 
> Romans 6 must be
> interpreted in light of the whole, rather than reinterpreting the 
> whole in light of
> Romans 6.
> 
> I wholeheartedly agree if we treat the commands of Christ "just 
> like" Torah (because
> of our innate depraved habit of emphasizing the legal) that we 
> encroach on the
> problem of Romans 7.  But any kind of legalist treatment of the 
> commands of Christ
> fails the same test as the legalist treatment of the Torah in Romans 
> 7: the
> Incarnation is not about "burden", but about "rest" (since Christ is 
> also the
> endpoint of the Seventh day of Creation/Sabbath).  When we treat 
> Christ's commands
> in a legalist manner, we fail to understand how the Incarnation has 
> done away not
> only with the Old Covenant but the ministry of death that is/was its 
> legacy.  We
> fail to understand that our righteousness, even if grounded on NT 
> "law" will never
> gain favor with God... and we eschew that which is only and ever our 
> grounds for
> favor with God: Christ's righteousness.
> 
> Chad Bresson
> Xenia, OH
> 
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