This Sunday I begin a new Sunday school series with my teens–“Understanding the overarching storyline of scripture.” As part of the curriculum a developed, I’ve been looking forward to teaching this series for quite sometime. I think the teens will enjoy it. And I think we’ll all learn a lot in the process.
In Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed, Dr. Carson presents a Biblical investigation and evaluation of the title “Son of God,” and specifically the title “Son of God” as it is used to refer to Jesus.
He breaks up the short book into three chapters.
In chapter 1, “‘Son of God’ as a Christological Title,” he investigates the various Biblical uses of “Son of ___,” then focuses specifically on “Son of God,” and then focuses even more specifically on how the “Son of God” title is employed in reference to Jesus. Clearly, many “Son of ___” uses do not express a biological relationship, but presume some other kind of relationship or shared trait. Having established this point, Carson teases out its implications for the use of “Son of God” in reference to Israel’s kings who are called “Sons of God” and eventually the ultimate “Son of God” in this sense–Jesus.
In Gospel and Kingdom by Graeme Goldsworthy, two prominent argument-themes emerge. For that sake of organization, I’ll present this review according to those two categories.
The fact that God acts in the history of men and interprets his acts means that these historical events will form a pattern that relates to the purpose of God [pg. 42].
And the central pattern that spans Biblical history, for Goldsworthy, is the concept of kingdom [42].
For Goldsworthy, the kingdom of God involves (a) God’s people, (b) in God’s place, (c) under God’s rule [53-54]. Both the content of the central Biblical covenants and the goal of redemption history is this kingdom of God [53]. Therefore, as an implication, under various Biblical covenants and within various eras of redemption history, different forms or stages of development of this kingdom exist on a trajectory ultimately consummating in the final realization of this kingdom in the Jesus Christ.
The following was a short exegetical essay for Dr. Richard E. Averbeck’s Pentateuch and Historical Books course at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
In Nehemiah 1:6, Nehemiah begins his prayer with an introductory petition to God. He begins, “let your ear be attentive and your eyes be open to hear the prayer of your servant.” Although the casual reader will likely brush over this line without much notice or a second glance, this language prompts many exegetical and theological questions for the thoughtful interpreter. Some of these questions may be trivial or easily resolved, e.g., does God have ears, eyes, or a physical sort of body? But others are quite serious—what does this request imply about the nature of God, His impassibility, his omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, immutability, aseity, etc.?—and may even begin to touch on debates revolving around what has been called “process theology.” The careful exegete and interpreter, therefore, do well to investigate this matter in greater detail.
According to Fensham, this language denotes Nehemiah’s request for God to pay attention to His prayer (155). But does an omniscient, omnipresent God need to be reminded or requested to pay attention? On a complementary note, Breneman clarifies the issue by arguing that this language serves the rhetorical purpose of communicating a request to action. The Biblical testimony never exhibits doubt that God hears, observes, and notices the prayers of His people. In other words, “Nehemiah knew that God would hear.” That wasn’t the issue. “He was asking God to take action” (172). Williamson provides some evidential grounds for this kind of conclusion. He claims that Nehemiah’s manner of appeal, namely, an appeal to the activity of God’s sensing organs, was quite normal and would not have struck the original readers as so bizarre or necessarily theologically troublesome. Of exegetical significance, Williamson points out the obvious metaphorical nature of this language—“The superficially curious juxtaposition of ‘eyes’ and ‘hearing’ provides a fully intelligible metaphor. . . .” (173). Similar language is also used at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8:29, 52 and 2 Chron 6:40, in which the meaning is clearly metaphorical, figurative, and poetic. On the other hand, Clines and Allen believe that this language is based on the ritualistic habits commonly involved in praying. Stating, “Prayer is not simply a verbal matter, but is also expressed by ritual actions and postures,” Clines claims that Nehemiah began his petition by requesting that God take notice of his physical acts of prayer, “his evident signs of grief” (138-139; cf. Allen, 92).
In conclusion, I find the metaphorical-figurative explanation the most compelling. Clearly, Nehemiah is appealing to God that God hears his prayer. But this does not imply that God otherwise might not be aware of Nehemiah’s cry. God is spirit, and therefore he does not have literal, physical, bodily eyes and ears. To use such language is to employ anthropomorphic language to express in human terms, in more understandable language, what might otherwise come across more abstractly. This conclusion is best supported by the following observations: (1) Williamson’s observation that the mismatched juxtaposition between God’s supposed eyes and hearing ability makes little sense if taken literally and (2) the parallels with 1 Kings 8 and 2 Chron 6 argue for an anthropomorphic use. Clines and Allen’s argument that Nehemiah was requesting that God take notice of Nehemiah’s prayer rituals is extremely stretched and unnecessary. Therefore, in sum, Nehemiah is appealing to God’s attentiveness, that is, that God might “hear” his prayer in the sense that God might respond positively to Nehemiah’s request. Rather than indicating a deficiency in God, Nehemiah demonstrates an utter dependence on God that displays the omnipotence of God.
The following was a short exegetical essay for Dr. Richard E. Averbeck’s Pentateuch and Historical Books course at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
At the close of his prayer, Nehemiah describes God’s servants as those who “delight to fear your [YHWH’s] name.” Interestingly, out of the handful of commentaries examined, this author was unable to find a single comment on this quick phrase. However, this somewhat odd and seemingly paradoxical expression is certainly worthy of further study because undoubtedly it speaks volumes to fundamental questions about the source and nature of the believer’s delight, let alone his or her relationship with God.
יָרֵא means to fear, to hold in awe or deference. It connotes a level of honor and respect. And often, it is used to refer to the proper fear due to God (Holladay, 142). But paradoxically, Nehemiah’s words indicate that delight is found in fearing God’s name. (As is commonly known, “name” in the OT is often used to represent one’s essential characteristics. Therefore, this refers to those who fear God as He truly is.) However, this is very much contrary to common opinion; many live, act, and think as though pleasure is found in anything but God and His commandments. In fact, God is even called the “cosmic killjoy.” Contrary to this thought, Nehemiah demonstrates the belief that pleasure is found in fearing God, “that there is a kind of sweetness to the very experience of fearing God” as Piper says. Fear itself is a sweetness to the believer (Piper, “Kindness and Severity of God”). As Piper further explains,
There’s a reason why people run away from scenes of terror in real life, but still go to movies to see the same terror. There’s a reason why no one wants to fall out of an airplane, but they will pay money at Valley Fair for the same sensation of falling. The reason is that we were created to be safely afraid of God. Everything else is an echo of this truth. We were made to be safely afraid of God, because when we are safely afraid of God—when there is no condemnation and we know that he is our Father and our Friend—then what remains in fear of God is deeply pleasant. (Piper, “Kindness and Severity of God”) In sum, Nehemiah’s description of the saint alludes to the reality that there is ironically greater pleasure found in living a life that honors God’s way and refuses the temporary and lesser sinful pleasures. That’s the paradox of “delighting to fear.” It’s not to say that fearing God won’t mean the forfeiting of some pleasures. But paradoxically, the forfeiting of such pleasures in the pursuit of reverencing God yields even greater, unshakable pleasure.
Kirk E. Miller 