The Jericho Road

I came across an excellent paper on dating the book of Daniel in my research on the Beast of the prophecies in Daniel and Revelation. [See links at end of post]

As conservative scholars know, perhaps the single most glaring affront to Biblical scholarship by the liberal academy is their refusal to even examine the most current data supporting a 6th century B.C. date for Daniel. To do so would destroy their arguments against the supernatural, prophetic revelation of God to man, a philosophical presupposition they refuse to subject to their own rules of evidence.

As this well researched paper by David Conklin concludes, rather than admit their abject failure to discredit Daniel’s early dating based on the evidence, they even refuse to publish any conservative documentation to the contrary in the bibliographies of books most available to the general public, thus falsely perpetuating a suspect theory as sound scholarship. Conklin rightly notes that the same treatment cannot be said of conservative counterparts, who have published extensive examinations of the liberal position. Their not so hidden, aging and outmoded liberal agenda undermines the very academic process in which they take so much pride.

Should you doubt my strong statements, please read the Conklin paper. I’ve provided it in .pdf format here or you can find it online here.  

No scholar who uses sound principles of research seriously and consistently could continue supporting a later2nd century Maccabean date for the book of Daniel. Therefore, the arguments previously used to undermine the very idea of prophetic revelation and its consequent implications for humanity are unsustainable. God did indead foresee and foretell the broad range of salvation-history.

Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! — 2 Timothy 2.8,9

 

Paul, in writing to his young son in the Christian faith, Timothy, declares that though his body is bound with chains in a dungeon, the word of God not bound, but free to do it’s work in the power of the living God, whose word it is.

If we would remember this truth, that the Word of God cannot be held by deceit or even death, that it lives in the freedom of the Spirit to do it’s work of revival and reformation, then we would be more willing to give our own selves to the service of the Word.

What chains are binding us that could be undone by the Word of freedom? What lies have bound us down to despair and other forms of misery, lies that could be challenged, refuted, and destroyed by the power of God’s living Word? Are we free from guilt and the bondage of disobedience or do we remain slaves of the ruler of this world, the dark lord who hates our Christ?

Our freedom does not depend on the human mobility, the ability of the preacher or teacher sent from God. Even when the apostle was imprisoned he had confidence that the work of God would continue, perhaps through the remembered Word he had preached or the Word proclaimed by new, young servants like Timothy. We too must have this attitude in Christ. We too must believe that God’s word never returns to him void, but accomplishes all it was sent to do.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.  — John 1.14-18

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  John 8.31-36

Jesus accepted the self-authenticating nature of Scripture, which for him was the Old Testament. There is no evidence of Jesus using modern critical methodologies of form or source criticism. Nor did he use extra-Biblical sources to interpret the Word of God. He accepted and applied the Scriptures with an authority that transcended culture, be it culture within or without the church. Unless a figure of speech was being used, he read the Scripture in it’s literal meaning. In doing so he also revealed the far-reaching connections of one truth to another, seeing a unity of thought running like a scarlet thread from cover to cover of the divine text. Jesus did not trouble himself with pointing out imagined or real textual difficulties within the canon. He concerned himself with the practical application of the truth to the heart, his own and his listeners. “And the common people heard him gladly”.

The methodology of Jesus was analogous, within limits, to an incarnational paradigm, to that of himself as the divine Word becoming flesh. Doing came out of Being. He was what he taught; the same can be said for Scripture. It is consistent in what it accomplishes with it’s character as the Word of God. It is mysterious yet always true, paradoxical without contradiction. Clear, simple, profound, beautiful, deep, firm, just, loving, and gentle in spirit, Scripture carries all the ethos and pathos of it’s divine-human authorship.

Jesus Christ is the fully human, fully divine Son of God, Son of man; his word is no more, no less. Any methodology used to “read” the Word of God, if it is true theology, will “live and move and have it’s being” by this rule.

If you want further insight into my burden for the Biblical doctrine of revelation, of how God makes himself known to us, you might want to read the posts on my recent time at the BUC (British Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventist) Ministerial Conference in Rogaska, Slovenia. Here is the link to a page of eight postings.

I am convinced of a great need on the part of gospel teachers, preachers, and administrators to understand how and why a theology of the cross is necessary and sufficient to meet the needs of the church today. I Corinthians, chapters one and two, are the place to start. It was one of the major Scripture passages on which Martin Luther founded his theology of revelation (a theology of the cross) that we find in articulated in his Heidelberg Disputation. This, far more than the over-romanticized “95 Thesis”, laid down the gauntlet to the Church for revival and reformation. I believe it will serve the same purpose for us today.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. John 1.1 

Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, said man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (John 1.14; Matthew 4.4). Therefore, we live by him.

A question: Because the Word of God is true life, why is not the word of man superfluous?  

The answer: We were made in the image of God, that is, we are persons with a voice of self-expression.  

Our problem is not that we too speak, but that we speak against God. When we are reunited with God through Christ, our voice is one with his. We then speak with the same voice, the voice of God’s Word made flesh, one in character and purpose. This is our true life and true freedom.  Separated from God, we die in slavery. The truth sets us free.

Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Perhaps we should only speak the truth.

I work from a certain basic presupposition, one that that immediately defines my position in the world of thought. That presupposition says I accept the Bible as the authoritative, necessary, and sufficient Word of God. I believe it is the means by which God speaks to man, that his written word carries all that is implied by his spoken word, and that God not only reveals truth to us by his word, but also reveals himself. In other words, I know him in a personal way as I “hear” him speak in the Bible.

Two of the clearest passages supporting my presupposition are 2 Timothy 3.16-17 and 2 Peter 1.16-21:

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

 

“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

For those of us who accept this testimony as what philosophers call, “justified true belief” (JTB), we have an inexhaustible source of truth that is, as I said above, is authoritative, necessary, and sufficient for all that pertains to this life and the promised one to come.

With those who do not accept this presupposition, I have no influence. Nothing I say will carry any authority, be necessary or sufficient to meet their needs. Because this is a crux, a fulcrum on which so much is balanced, it is the first thing I listen for when I talk with someone else. In other words, I want to know what their relation is to the Word of God. By knowing that, I have some sense of where we stand with one another regarding our view of reality. For the Biblical view of reality is the only true one. All others are false.

Of course, this last statement is rejected by many modern and nearly all postmodern thinkers. We live in a world where the vast majority of people have accepted the false teaching that says, “all truth is relative”. They would like to believe there is no truth outside of themselves which will judge them in the end. They would like to believe we can all hold “truths”, no matter how contradictory, and still be on a journey to God. For the world, the most that matters is our sincerity or good intentions.

Few today believe there is a definitive, propositional word from God about what is true and what is not. Postmoderns do not believe in truth, only interpretation. You have “a” truth, I have “a” truth, but they do not believe there is “the truth” which is a standard for us all.

Such thinking, in it’s predominance and pervasiveness, has so deluded the world that we are rapidly descending into a chaos of conflicting values. Therefore, war is not only inevitable, but even now engulfing the world. This convinces me as much as anything else that Christ will return soon. Should he not, what would be left?

Intro: Here is a draft of a letter, an email, I did not send. The reason for not sending it and for posting it here will remain with me, though the discerning reader might hazard a guess. In it’s place I simply asked a question or two. I’m publishing it here to serve as a starting point. And if the truth be told, I spent so much time with it I it seems a waste not to put the thoughts to work. Should I change my mind, the delete key isn’t far from hand.

Dear _____, 

If we accept that words are a means of self-expression, a way for the self to make itself known and relate itself to itself and to another, then I would think Jesus would want to be known as he is in his person. An absolutely subjective self, one that cannot relate itself to another outside itself can only exist alone. Without some measure of objective existence that relates to our self, there is no other reality than the single self. To say there is an “other” is to say there is something other than me, something other than me as the subject. To have another is to have an object. I may choose not to relate to the “other” but if I acknowledge their existence, then in that acknowledgement I have created a relation with an object, i.e. an objective reality other than my self.

If I will say that Christ is a self, one apart from and outside myself, then I begin to ask questions about who he is. And who do I ask? Do I ask myself who this other self is or do I ask the other self itself? Should I try to form my own image of this other self or allow it to express its own self to me? Of course, you know I’ve chosen to allow Christ to express himself, to make himself known as he chooses. I do so simply because I believe he is. I believe he is because he has spoken and I have heard him. And I believe he is greater than my self, that the relation of myself to himself is not one of equal to equal but of a greater to a lesser. Therefore, the voice that has pre-imminence should be his rather than mine. That is, he as object, an objective self, takes precedence over me as subject, a subjective self. Both exist and do so in relation to one another. For the relation to exist, both the objective self, him, and subjective self, I, are necessary.  

To do that He must speak in a way that communicates His real self and I must hear in a way that receives Him as He is. Therefore, I believe in the paradox of the Word made flesh, of Christ manifest as a self within human time and space. I don’t believe I know him in any way that approaches the absolute, but in whatever way he has chosen to make himself known. I receive what he gives of himself as his true self, the only self called Christ that is knowable for myself. And I accept that he is able to transcend the limits of my subjective self to make himself known- as he was, as he is, and as he will be. His transcendence is not my achievement but his revelation within time and space, i.e. he has made himself known historically.

My thoughts above come from such questions: How will I have the true image of Christ, kept separate from a Christ who merely reflects my own? Is he a revealed Christ or an imagined self? Will He be formed or in-formed within me as an imagined Jesus who can never be more than my conception or will He be the Jesus who has made Himself known through His Word within time and space?

Some things I think about from time to time.

Jan

An unscientific postscript: On rereading my words, especially the first phrase, I thought I should offer something else. If by “mystical” you are saying you have formed a relation within yourself that makes a knowable language superfluous, then that is something, by definition, that I could not speak to, for I have developed no such way of communicating myself to another self. Nor have a discovered a way, by drugs or some other means, of in-forming a relation within my self to my self. When I have, on occasion approached such a thing, it looked and felt like a cold, dark, consuming abyss. I hope never to go there again by choice. I have known and spoken to others who have such a relation, a divided self, but have not found it possible to form a cohesive relation with them. They have remained alone and unable to interact with others. And I can’t say I’ve found them particularly happy, not by my standard of that term, but by their own. Uncertainty and a consuming fear seemed to dominate their perceptions.

For me, the state of being implied by absolute subjectivity would be absolute aloneness. If I believed “I” am all I am, then I would choose not to exist. But if I admit another, on what terms will we relate? I do not believe an absolute autonomous self can admit another into relationship with itself. To do so defies the absoluteness of it’s autonomy. Therefore, if an absolute autonomous self exist, it is unknowable, unrelated to my self. In short, it would not, could not, be real to me. But, in reality, I do relate to others, not in any absolute sense, but within mutually prescribed bounds of reality. Those “bounds of reality”, to be mutual, must be communicable. Therefore, I believe God communicates to me within the bounds of reality in which I exist, that is, he communicates himself in words that are knowable enough to me that I can apprehend his person and make choices about our relation. Though completely “Other” than my self, he makes himself known in a way that enables me to form a relation with him.

Pushing further, I have found that meeting point to be the crux of all reality, a crux posited at a specific time and place in human history where communication between God and a self are possible, where we see things as they are. At Calvary, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”. The Word made flesh was laid open and God was seen, as were we. Faith alone resolves the paradox of God, who is transcendently other than us, being “God with us” on a cross. That he would do that for me is beyond anything I call reasonable.

“…concerning his Son…”

Having identified himself, Paul identifies his message. He answers the question, for the moment, about who he is and what he is going to say. Such answers go to the heart of our most basic questions about ourselves as well. “Who I am?” Not being able to answer this question  about  ourselves or about others in our immediate world produces feelings of anxiety and fear. Having little or no knowledge of who we are means we will be alienated from others we meet. If we are also ignorant of who they are and what they are wanting or saying, the fear will only increase.

Many of us live lives infected with self-doubt and doubt about those around us. This becomes more intense the closer we come to others, perhaps because we have learned that pain can be created when human beings rub up against themselves and the world.

By seeking and creating identity we feel more secure and in control of our world. We can give a name or description to people, places and things. This is part of what we call learning and it keeps us from losing valuable information that we need to negotiate the pitfalls in life. We need identity to know what we should cherish and what we should avoid. Without it we are at the mercy of the unknown.

In the book of Romans Paul is doing more than identifying himself or his message; he is giving identity to the soul itself. He does this by revealing the “who” and the “what” of God and man. This is book of truth about who God is, what God wants. It is a book about who we are and what we want. It is a book defining or identifying the relationship between God and man that will mean true life for us.

Romans is very much about identifying what is real and what is not, what is true and what is false in the things that matter most to the human soul.

“…concerning his Son…”

Paul’s message to the Romans will be the gospel (“good news”) about the Son of God. This is the nature of his work as a servant of Christ Jesus and Apostle. In effect, his service and apostleship is that of a messenger. But it is more. He is not content to read a verbatim announcement declaring bare facts about the person and work of God’s Son, but is going to use all that he knows about the art of communication to persuade the Romans of the high value of Jesus. All of his energy and wits are focused on the Son and making him known so clearly that he will be the “power of God unto salvation”.

All communication, all forms of communication have content or what we call a message. There is a sender of the message, a receiver, and a means of conveying the message. For Paul, that means is writing, symbols that carry meaning put down on parchment and hand-carried to the receivers. In the book of Romans we have an example of how simply the gospel can be transmitted or communicated between human beings. And this simple form can be used by anyone. I’m using it now as I write these words. But we should not be mislead in thinking such a simple way is not also a powerful way of communicating the truth. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit human words can be called Scripture and that Scripture may be the very presence of God to the soul or “receiver” who accepts the Word in faith.

We may not be like Paul, writing Scripture, but we may share or pass on what has been given to us. We may make our comments and share our knowledge of its meaning with others. The actual processes of communicating truth between people has been created by God himself. The deeper working its principles have been studied and declared as much a mystery as quantum physics, yet even a child may speak the very Word of God when he or she recites a verse the have memorized.

We should also be aware, as was Paul, that all communication is threatened by what communication teachers call “noise”. Reading a letter, writing a letter, speaking a word, hearing a word, these acts are done amid many other competing sounds, some very articulate and contridictory, others merely static on the souls wave-length. The buzzing of a fly could distract Pascal from his meditations of Christ, the rustle of a leaf in the autumn air might turn our thoughts to death or in the other direction, to thoughts of a coming spring and resurrection of life. Our minds can fixate and easily miss the message sent by God through others or they can be led by seemingly obscure and circuitous routes into divine streams of life.

Are our ears open to the message “concerning his Son” or have we become faulty receptors in need of repair? Fortunately for us, the very message itself has been encoded with the necessary virus repairs. If we will keep the connection open the white noise of distraction will clear and the Son himself will come in a clear and articulate voice, speaking hope to our tired souls.

“…which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures…”

    The gospel Paul brings to the Romans, the one he is proclaiming and explaining in advance of his coming to them, is “the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through prophetic writings has been made known to all nations…” (Rom. 16.25-26)
    Paul wants the Romans to understand he is not coming with a creation of his own, but one that was ordained of God and revealed in the past. This past revelation also came through intermediaries, through prophets whose words from God were written down in the “prophetic writings”, what is called the Scriptures. The Romans could compare the teachings of Paul with those Scriptures as those did in Berea, “examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts. 17.11). As the Berean’s were called noble for this study of the prophetic writings, so the message in those writings was noble, being the gospel of salvation revealed by God.
    In Romans we have the opening up of a revelation that had been called a mystery, a revelation couched in shadows and types of “better things to come”. The gospel of Romans, “concerning his Son” is the same gospel of Old Testament times. It is not a new way of salvation, but a new revelation in the sense of bringing something hidden into the open.
    Those prophets had longed for deeper understanding of the promised things to come. They wondered at the mystery of Christ and what his coming would reveal to the “sons of men”. In the preaching and teaching of the apostles, those called and sent by God for the service of the gospel, that time of revelation had come. Paul appeals to the tradition handed down in the sacred Scriptures as his authority, as the reason for paying closer attention to what is about to be revealed.

We might ask ourselves about the foundation of our faith. Is it in the prophetic word called Scripture or have we fashioned a gospel, a “good news” for ourselves that is disconnected and inconsistent with the true mystery of the faith? Are we, like the Bereans and the Romans, daily searching the Scriptures to see if these things are so? If not, then perhaps we are betraying the fact that our faith is in something else, something not from God. How will we know if we do not look closer at what Paul is going unfold in the coming pages?