For a while now I've felt unhappy with the division made between Christ as the Word of God and the Scriptures as the Word of God. A difference obviously exists, but an emphasis on one often seem to reduce the importance of the other. I'm sure its a often made distinction, but I first encountered it in print and felt it inadequate in Alister McGrath's book 'A Passion for Truth'.
I've been reading about Wisdom recently. Ben Witherington comments on Sirach 241 that Ben Sira first identified Wisdom with God's oral word which spoke the universe into being and ordered it. He then suggests that God's Wisdom has taken up a particular location in Zion and in the Book of the Covenant. This means that while Torah expresses Wisdom for Israel it does not exhaust it. This is a provocative idea and could well be part of the origin of the idea of how Jesus transcends the law in Matthew's Gospel. But my particular point for this argument is that if this idea can be applied to our Christian Bible then we will have the same word in creation that is in the book. While we can distinguish between them and recognise that one is universal (the word spoken in creation) and one particular (the word in Torah for Israel), we must still affirm that they are both the same Word. Therefore we cannot create dichotomies between them. We cannot set one against the other.
1. Jesus the Sage, Fortress, 1994. p. 86
I've been reading about Wisdom recently. Ben Witherington comments on Sirach 241 that Ben Sira first identified Wisdom with God's oral word which spoke the universe into being and ordered it. He then suggests that God's Wisdom has taken up a particular location in Zion and in the Book of the Covenant. This means that while Torah expresses Wisdom for Israel it does not exhaust it. This is a provocative idea and could well be part of the origin of the idea of how Jesus transcends the law in Matthew's Gospel. But my particular point for this argument is that if this idea can be applied to our Christian Bible then we will have the same word in creation that is in the book. While we can distinguish between them and recognise that one is universal (the word spoken in creation) and one particular (the word in Torah for Israel), we must still affirm that they are both the same Word. Therefore we cannot create dichotomies between them. We cannot set one against the other.
1. Jesus the Sage, Fortress, 1994. p. 86
1 comment:
This does need qualification though. Lutheran approaches (of which Käsemann is an example?) would argue that Jesus is abrogating the Law in Matthew's Gospel. (See the 1st, 2nd and 4th antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount). The fact that the wisdom type is being used to explain Christ's role is not affirmeding that Wisdom is also expressed in Torah, it is questioning this.
It is possible to take a more positive view of Law in Matthew's Gospel (5:17 & 23:23), but there is undeniably a radical superseding in the New Testament generally. To affirm that that Scripture is the Word of God, is not to say how it is authortive. It may be so only indirectly for the Christian ... more thinking necessary I think.
Post a Comment