Theological Reflections on the Canonical Witness

Image: Brevard Childs (1923-2007)

We should now like to attempt some theological reflections that go beyond the descriptive task of Biblical Theology, and use as the context the witness of the whole Christian canon. It is interesting to recall the other recent theological attempts to develop an understanding of God from a different context. One thinks especially of Tillich’s ontological approach from "the ground of being," of Bultmann’s existential stance that cannot talk of God except through the medium of anthropology, of Altizer and the "death of God" theologians who speak of the God of the Old Testament dying with Jesus to signal a freeing of man from superstition, and of the "new left" who identify God with service toward one’s fellows and the humanizing of the structures of society. Perhaps the only things held in common among these various contemporary alternatives is their failure to take the Biblical canon seriously.

What does it mean to interpret the New Testament in the light of the Old? First, the Old Testament witness to the God of Israel provides the matrix in which the Christological statements of the New Testament are made. We cannot understand Jesus Christ apart from what God was doing as creator of the world, convenanting with Israel, guiding and directing the nations in judgment and mercy. The faith of the Christian church is not built upon Jesus of Nazareth who had a Jewish background, but its faith is directed to God, the God of Israel, Creator of the world, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament testimony to God serves the church, not as interesting background to the New Testament, nor as historical preparation for Christ’s arrival, but as the living vehicle of the Spirit through which it continues to confront God.

Secondly, the Old Testament witness to God as the context from which to understand the New Testament guards the Christian against any truncated interpretation of God’s work in Christ that would separate the physical world from the spiritual, the objective action from the internal motivation, the people of God from the individual believer, and commitment to a covenant from authentic existence. Most of the heresies of the Christian church stem from a distorted emphasis of the New Testament that has been cut adrift from its Old Testament moorings.

Thirdly, the Old Testament witness to God continues to provide the primary witness to dimensions of God’s nature and purpose which, far from being corrected, are sustained and reiterated in the New. The righteousness of God is not bypassed but fulfilled in the cross. The holiness of God is not reduced by the incarnation but radicalized. The unity of God is not endangered by the Son but confirmed. The mystery of God is not made obvious but projected to new dimensions of wonder and praise.

Conversely, what does it mean to interpret the Old Testament in the light of the New? First, the New Testament testifies to the failure of Israel in its response to the covenant will of God. The Old Testament does not present a history of growing obedience or increasing illumination, but ends in dissidence and uncertainty. The easy continuity expressed in the phrase "the Judeo-Christian heritage" is opposed by the New Testament’s witness to Jesus Christ, which testifies to his suffering, rejection, and death at the hands of the chosen people. The New Testament remains an offense because it lays claim to the Scriptures of Israel and hears in them the testimony to the rejected Messiah of God.

Secondly, the New Testament’s witness to Christ as the context for understanding the Old Testament points to the fact that there is no aspect of the old covenant’s testimony which is unaffected by the Lord of the church. The New Testament confesses Christ as Creator, Eternal Wisdom, Redeemer of Israel, and Judge. There is no body of Old Testament teaching that stands by itself and is untouched by the revelation of the Son. This means that frequent appeal to the term "Christomonism" raises a false issue, which has failed to understand the dynamics of Trinitarian theology.

Thirdly, the New Testament’s witness to Christ provides the context from which to understand the tensions within the Old Testament’s witness to God. His justice and his mercy find a unity in the death of Jesus, his transcendence and immanence in the incarnation, and his Kingship over heaven and earth in the reign of his Christ. The claim for a unity within the Old Testament is a theological confession that views the promise from the perspective of its fulfillment.

Fourthly, the New Testament’s witness to Christ guards the Old Testament from distortions to which it is vulnerable when isolated from its whole context. The God of the Old Testament is not the God of Israel alone, but of all the nations. The physical blessings of this world -- life, land, the people -- are an inheritance that points to the ultimate reward which is God himself. Man’s worship, his deeds of charity, and search for God are vain and worthless strivings without the Spirit of God who breathes life into dead forms.

Lastly, what does it mean to interpret the Biblical witnesses to God in the light of God’s reality, and his reality m the light of the witnesses? First, the Scriptures are pointers to God himself. To know about God is not the same as knowing God. "Let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me." (Jer. 9:24.) The God of the Bible is not a theological system, but a living and acting Lord, the one with whom we have to do -- now. We are confronted, not just with ancient witnesses, but with our God who is the Eternal Present. Prayer is an integral part in the study of Scripture because it anticipates the Spirit’s carrying its reader through the written page to God himself. Again, obedience is the source of the right knowledge of God. Peter said to Jesus: "Lord, what about this man?" Jesus said: "What’s that to you? Follow me." The Christian is led from faith to faith, but in the context of faithful response to God and his people. Finally, the Christian interpreter strives to learn to use the language of faith that he reads in the Bible. The ancient medium becomes a living vehicle into the presence of God only insofar as it becomes the witness of each new generation. He cannot ape the past, but he can be instructed by the prophets and apostles toward the end that he learns himself to speak the language of faith for his age.

Brevard Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (pp. 216-19)