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"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, con
cerning the word of life -- the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it ...." I John 1:1-2 (RSV)

"After his resurrection the disciples saw the living Christ, whom they knew to have died, with the eyes of faith (oculata fide)." Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, 55, 2 ad 1, as quoted in D. M. Stanley, Jesus in Gethsemane (New York, Paulist Press 1980).

Friday, January 26, 2018

Jenson - Role of Old Testament

For some reason Christians lose sight of the fact that the God who saved Israel from Egypt is the God who raised Jesus from the dead.  Here Robert W. Jenson discusses the role of the Old Testament in the church: 

[W]hat did and should it mean for the role of the Old Testament in the church, that in some new way it is now "directed to Christ"? We see that our question must be limited: we cannot ask why the Old Testament is Scripture after Christ's resurrection, but only about the way in which the Old Testament canon actually functions within the risen Christ's community. 
...
When the narratives of the patriarchs' adventures, of the exodus, of the conquest of Canaan, or of the Lord's judgments and restorations of Israel are felt as alien, one of two things is likely to happen; both have actually happened, and both undermine the faith.  One possible and currently actual outcome is that preaching and teaching construe "the New Testament's God" simply by constructing a contrary of the supposed Old Testament God: the God of the gospel is pacific, nonjudgmental, and in general a really nice person. In much of the liberal church, in many Evangelical groups, and indeed among many "progressive" Catholics, theology has thus been replaced by sentimentality ....
...
We must therefore be careful in stipulating the difference that the crucifixion and resurrection made for the role of the Old Testament. In the New Testament itself, the Old Testament's theological authority is unaffected. The Old Testament's identification of the Lord as "the one who rescued Israel from Egypt" is indeed completed by "the one who rescued the Lord Jesus from death"; but it is not replaced (Soulen, God); and in general the New Testament simply assumes the whole of Israel's story about God's works with his people. Whatever problems the Old Testament law made for a soon predominantly Gentile church, Jesus' own remembered words confirmed that the law reveals God's will. And Israel's prophets were the very teachers from whom the primal church learned why Jesus is needed.

Canon and Creed (Interpretation) (Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church)
by Robert W. Jenson  (Westminster John Knox Press 2010).