The past several decades have witnessed a remarkable and growing interest in theological interpretation of Scripture. General introductions to theological interpretation, biblical-theological commentaries, and anthologies of patristic exegesis have appeared on the market, and also theological journals, conferences, and seminary courses are devoting themselves to this latest trend in biblical interpretation. In broad terms, the increasing appreciation for theological interpretation stems from the influence both of Karl Barth, via the Yale school, on North American theological scholarship, and of the nouvelle theologie movement in France, most notably Henri de Lubac and Jean Danielou, not only in Catholicism but also among Protestants. To my mind, this two-pronged (ecumenical) impact on biblical exegesis has great promise, as it may mark both a renaissance in biblical studies and a genuine rapprochement between biblical and theological studies.
Advocates of theological interpretation are by no means unanimous, however, on how to reappropriate theological (or spiritual) interpretation. We don’t need to dig far under the surface to find disagreement about what constitutes theological interpretation of Scripture. Kevin Vanhoozer distinguishes three distinct emphases, and although he adds that they are “more complementary than contradictory,” it is probably fair to suggest that they lead to a fair bit of disagreement in practice.1 Noting divergent attitudes to historical criticism along with ecclesial fragmentation, R. R. Reno is forced to acknowledge in the series preface to the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible that “the Nicene tradition, in all its diversity and controversy, provides the proper basis for the interpretation of the Bible” and that “we cannot say in advance how doctrine helps the Christian reader assemble the mosaic of scripture.”2 The general editor’s modesty with regard to the series’ homogeneity illustrates the wide range of approaches in theological interpretation. Clearly, we are in need of continuing discussion about the nature of theological interpretation.
Indeed, the term “theological interpretation” is not without its drawbacks. As I just noted, the term is a catchall for a variety of approaches to the Scriptures, not all of which are compatible with each other. What is more, by speaking of “theological interpretation,” we may give the impression that other kinds of
interpretation (such as “historical exegesis”) approach the biblical text simply from a different angle and that both are equally independent and equally valid.
To be sure, the Christian faith is rooted in history, and historical exegesis is indispensable for a proper understanding of the Scriptures. However, historical reading is never purely historical, as if there were a purely natural or factual substructure on which one would subsequently build a separate or distinct theological reading. As I will make clear throughout this book (particularly in chap. 2), the church fathers understood even a literal reading of the text theologically. That is to say, historiography is always theologically shaped—or, to put it perhaps better, the writing of history is itself undergirded by Jesus Christ, whom we have come to know in faith through the proclamation of the Word. Just as there is no pure nature (pura natura), so there is also no pure history (pura historia). Although I will use the term “theological interpretation” both in this preface and elsewhere in the book, I mean by that simply a reading of Scripture as Scripture, that is to say, as the book of the church that is meant as a sacramental guide on the journey of salvation—and one aspect of reading Scripture as Scripture is to take history seriously as anchored in Jesus Christ, who is the Alpha and the Omega of history (Rev. 1:8; 21:6; 22:13).3
This book is meant as a contribution to such a discussion on the nature of biblical interpretation. It presents my own approach and does so through interaction with patristic sources. Apart from the first chapter, the book simply follows the canonical sequencing of the biblical books as most Christian readers will be familiar with it. In each chapter, I take a portion (or portions) of Scripture and look at how various church fathers approached the Scriptures in their reading of a certain passage or biblical book. Each of the chapters makes a distinct argument and can, in principle, be read and understood on its own terms. At the same time, it is the cumulative effect of the chapters together that lends credence to the overall argument of the book, namely, that the church fathers were deeply invested in reading the Old Testament Scriptures as a sacrament, whose historical basis or surface level participates in the mystery of the New Testament reality of the Christ event. The underlying message of my argument is that this sacramental approach to reading the Scriptures is of timeless import and that it is worthy of retrieval today. The chapter titles are more or less playful references to various “kinds” of reading (e.g., “Hospitable Reading,” “Harmonious Reading”). In each case, I attempt to show that the kind of reading discussed in that chapter is sacramental in nature. In other words, I attempt to show how it is that the hospitable reading, harmonious reading, and so on, all give some indication of what it means for biblical reading to be sacramental in character.
This advocacy of sacramental reading is not without its predecessors. Most notably, mid-twentieth-century patristics scholar Henri de Lubac tirelessly promoted an understanding of “spiritual interpretation” that focused on the biblical text as being sacramental in character: “The entire New Testament is a great mystery hidden within this sacrament, or signifies by means of this sacrament which is the Old Testament.”4 Andrew Louth defends particularly the use of allegory, with an appeal to participation and to mystery: “Allegory is a way of holding us before the mystery which is the ultimate ‘difficulty’ of the Scriptures—a difficulty, a mystery, which challenges us to revise our understanding of what might be meant by meaning.”5 And Matthew Levering suggests: “Time or history as understood biblically, as Christologically and metaphysically participatory, challenges the modern understanding of eisegesis by understanding biblical realities from within their ongoing ‘conversation’ with God.”6 Each of these authors has been deeply influential in shaping my own reading of Scripture. This book will betray my debt to them on pretty much every page.
My turn to the patristic practice of reading Scripture sacramentally represents a fairly major shift in my thinking, one that has taken place gradually over the past fifteen years. The confessional Reformed tradition in which I grew up taught me to read the Scriptures historically, though always with a view to Christ. Our preachers loved the Old Testament inasmuch as it witnesses to Christ’s coming. Twentieth-century Dutch theologians such as Benne Holwerda and Klaas Schilder emphasized the need for thorough grammatical-historical exegesis, reading against the backdrop of the original context, and carefully taking into account the literary genre of the passage under consideration. The so-called redemptive-historical method of Holwerda and others staunchly opposed the moralizing and fragmentary use of the Old Testament that they encountered in “exemplaric” preaching, in which the dramatis personae of the Old Testament were reduced to the function of positive or negative role models. Over against this approach, the redemptive-historical method took as its starting point the centrality of history in the narrative of salvation: in Old Testament narratives God shows us how he prepares Israel and the world for the coming of the Christ.7 The result of Holwerda’s approach was thoroughly Christocentric preaching without a whiff of moralism (but also, some complained, without real concern for personal application). Every Old Testament text was analyzed in terms of its historical relationship to Jesus Christ.
For several years I served as a pastor in this denominational tradition, and during this time I became acquainted with N. T. Wright’s theology. I devoured his books, which advocate the so-called new perspective on Paul.8 Although at
crucial points Wright’s theology is incompatible with the Reformed tradition (notably in the way he treats the doctrines of predestination and justification), at the same time his hermeneutic is “redemptive historical” in the very same sense as advocated by the Dutch Reformed tradition of Holwerda and Schilder—only more emphatically so (and, as I think of it now, more reductively so). For Wright —and for an increasingly large number of evangelical biblical scholars— exegesis is primarily a historical discipline, one that escapes the “abstract” and “timeless” theology of Western, Platonized Christianity.
One of the greatest pastoral drawbacks of both the redemptive-historical method and the new perspective on Paul is that it’s hard to see how, with these approaches, readers of the Old Testament are able to relate the historical narrative to their own lives. It seems that in both these hermeneutical frameworks, the only way to arrive at a personal appropriation is by moving from the Old Testament, via Christ, to the situation of today. In the end, one is forced to leave the Old Testament behind. For example, on Wright’s understanding of exile, if one preaches on an Old Testament exilic text—say, one of Jeremiah’s warnings regarding the impending Babylonian invasion—the interpreter will first carefully read the text in a (grammatical-)historical manner and then move from Jeremiah to Christ as the one who, as the new Israel, took the exilic curse upon himself. By traversing six hundred years, from Jeremiah to the life of Christ and the origin of the church, we discover at the end of the journey that in and through Christ the exile has now come to an end, and we have been placed into the freedom of the children of God. On this understanding, the book of Jeremiah is of significance today only inasmuch as we leave the prophet (and the exile he announced) behind us in the historical record of the book that bears his name. Strictly historical readings of Scripture separate the reader from the original event described in the biblical text.
I won’t gainsay the important exegetical insights that such historical approaches yield. The weakness of historical exegesis, however, is that it doesn’t treat the Old Testament as a sacrament (sacramentum) that already contains the New Testament reality (res) of Christ. Or, as Irenaeus and others would have put it, strictly historical exegesis doesn’t see Christ as the treasure hidden in the field of the Old Testament (Matt. 13:44) and, therefore, as already really present within it.9 The fathers detected this presence of Christ throughout the Old Testament, and perhaps nowhere more clearly than in the Old Testament theophanies (divine appearances). The burning bush (Exod. 3), for instance, was typically interpreted as Christ manifesting himself to Moses. As the cover of this book makes clear, this reading continued into the Middle Ages, when around the year 1210 the Psalter of Ingeborg of Denmark, the Queen of France, depicted
Moses as contemplating Christ in front of the burning bush. These kinds of interpretations directly result from a sacramental approach to reading the Scriptures.
This sacramental mode of interpretation has rich spiritual and pastoral implications. After all, if it is true that the mystery, or the New Testament reality, of the Christ event is already present in the historical basis or surface level of the Old Testament, then this allows the Old Testament to speak directly into the lives of believers today—both personally and corporately. While in some way believers today may be separated from the Old Testament by several millennia, they are also actually present in the hidden dimension of the Old Testament. If Christ is genuinely present in the Old Testament, then believers—who are “in Christ”—are as well. Because believers are “in Christ,” when they locate his real presence in the Old Testament, they also find their own lives and realities reflected there. Put differently, when Christian readers find the treasure in the field, they discover themselves—their own identity—within the treasure. Why? Because it is in finding the presence of Christ that we most deeply come to know ourselves.
Although the theological direction advocated in this book has been percolating in my mind for years, its more immediate origin is a course on patristic exegesis that I started teaching at Regent College in Vancouver in 2010. I have very much enjoyed reading and discussing patristic commentaries and sermons together with my students; none of the material in this book would have seen the light of day were it not for their love for the Scriptures and their eagerness to read them with Spirit-filled passion and skill. I am grateful to Alec Arnold, Lewis Ayres,
Fr. John Behr, Corine Boersma, Gerald Boersma, Silvianne Aspray, Norm Klassen, Peter Martens, Tracy Russell, Karl Shuve, Matthew Thomas, and George Westhaver for the numerous insightful comments and corrections they offered on the manuscript. I also appreciate the hard work and efficiency of my research assistants: Phillip Hussey not only read the manuscript but also put together the bibliography, and Austin Stevenson put together an excellent set of indexes.
I put the finishing touches on this book during the early stages of my appointment as the Danforth Visiting Chair in Theological Studies at Saint Louis University (2015-2016). I am indebted to the president and board of Regent College for granting me an extended leave of absence. I want to thank my colleagues in the Department of Theological Studies at SLU both for the honor of inviting me to spend a year in their midst and for their gracious hospitality. It was a particular pleasure to deliver the Danforth Lecture, which subsequently has turned into chapter 3, “Hospitable Reading.”
Many additional opportunities to present and discuss the ideas in this book have helped to improve its contents. I’d like to thank George Westhaver for inviting me twice to speak at Pusey House, Oxford. George introduced me to Edward Pusey’s work on biblical interpretation, from which I have benefited greatly. I also thank Ephraim Radner for asking me to do a presentation at Wycliffe College in Toronto; Joseph Clair for the opportunity to try out some of my ideas at the William Penn Honors Program at George Fox University; Jens Zimmermann for inviting me to be part of his lecture series “Scripture, Theology and Culture” at Trinity Western University; Craig Hovey and Cyrus Olsen for organizing a panel on “The Hermeneutics of Tradition” at the American Academy of Religion; George Kalantzis and Dan Williams for organizing a colloquium on evangelical ressourcement at Wheaton College; and Bill Wilder and Fitz Green for asking me to speak at the Center for Christian Study in Charlottesville, Virginia.
It has been a real pleasure to work once again with Dave Nelson, Eric Salo, and their colleagues at Baker Academic. I thank them for their confidence in the project and for the kind support they have shown at every stage of its development. I also would like to acknowledge the permission to republish my articles from the Journal of Theological Interpretation, Calvin Theological Journal, the Canadian Theological Review, and Crux (2012), as well as chapters from Imagination and Interpretation: Christian Perspectives (Regent College Publishing) and from Living Waters from Ancient Springs: Essays in Honor of Cornelis Van Dam (Pickwick). Each of these articles and chapters are mentioned in the bibliography.
Finally, my wife, Linda, has lovingly treasured me for many years; she is, in turn, a treasure whose riches I’m still only learning to discover as she makes Christ really present in my life.
1. Vanhoozer, “Introduction,” 23.
2. Reno, “Series Preface” (emphasis added).
3. For these insights, I am particularly indebted to correspondence with Fr. John Behr.
4. De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, 22. See also H. Boersma, Nouvelle Theologie, 149-90.
5. Louth, Discerning the Mystery, 111.
6. Levering, Participatory Biblical Exegesis, 35.
7. For the foregoing, see Greidanus, Sola Scriptura, 131-37.
8. The impact of N. T. Wright is obvious in my book Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross.
9. Throughout this book I refer to the Hebrew Scriptures as the “Old Testament,” even though this is a somewhat anachronistic designation, since the church fathers only knew of the “Scriptures.” Cf. Allert, High View of Scripture? Still, the term “Hebrew Scriptures” is unsuitable because the church fathers often
used the Septuagint or a Latin translation as their Scriptures, and so for the sake of easy reference I have thought it best simply to use the term “Old Testament.”