Flattened Theology
Filed Under (Author, Dee Dee Warren, book excerpts, book reviews) by dee dee on 14-07-2012
Tagged Under : Authors-Greg Bahnsen, Authors-J.A. Schep, Authors-Kenneth Gentry, Greek-Sarx, Hermeneutics-Fallacies, Hermeneutics-Reductionism, Hermeneutics-Typology, Hermeneutics-Word Comparisons
Print This Post
I am once again attempting to listen straight through Dr. Bahnsen’s audio series on Revelation. I tried this before but my life got very busy, and I didn’t get very far. So I am starting again, and will post the nuggets here.
Dr. Bahsen warned against “flattening” our theology when we compare Scripture to Scripture and to remember that it is not always true that similar phrases mean the same thing. They can…. but they always sometimes don’t. This is of course part of the interpretative error of the hyperpreterists who shoehorn everything into an AD70 mold, which error is sometimes ignorantly propogated by my orthodox preterist brethren.
Specifically Dr. Bahnsen pointed this out:
Romans 8:9 - But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit….
Revelation 1:10 - I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day….
“In the Spirit” in these two passages are not the same thing, but they are related.
In a related issue, J.A. Schep noted in his work The Nature of Resurrection Body:
As is the case with Paul’s usage of the word “sarx,” the term “body of Christ”? isused with different conclusions. It can denote Christ’s personal, literal body, in which he dies, rose from the dead, went to heaven, and will come again; the Church; and the bread in the Lord’s Supper. Though the three are related, they are not identical.
Gentry makes the same point:
Beyond the introduction of this matter relative to the philosophy of language, it is important to realize that A.D. 70 is not unrelated to the Second Advent. As the ending of the era of sacrificial rituals and Israel-exalting redemptive history, A.D. 70 is a pre-consummational type of the Second Advent’s history ending, consummational conclusion. Hence, the similarity of language and the mixing of ideas is justified on the basis of the relationship of type (A.D. 70) to antitype (Second Advent) [This phenomenon of type/anti-type is very common in Davidic/Messianic passages. In such references, what is said of the historical King David often applies to the Messianic King Jesus.]
Even so come Lord Jesus.
Originally posted March 26, 2005
Awesome Dee.
There is no Scriptural reason why the destruction of the temple in AD70 can’t be viewed in the same way many OT prophecies were understand. That it had a near application, yet a far-in-the-future fulfillment.
Hyper-preterist will poo-poo this idea, yet they are the ones who also say that AD70 was the end of the Old Covenant. If the Old Covenant was all “types”, then the prophecies would logically extend into the New Covenant, i.e. the destruction of Jerusalem was the “final” Old Covenant prophecy which was a type of a future fulfillment.
I believe Sam, since leaving the hyper-preterist view, has spoken to this topic too. I appreciate you re-posting this now. It shows just how blinded I was ‘back then’ and how wrapped up I was in my hyper-preterism that I didn’t ’see’ it then.
Thank the Lord God He saw fit to bring me out of that heresy.
I am so glad it was useful. In going through the old material in order to try to more helpfully tag things I am realizing that there is a whole new audience that might appreciate it. I am glad you found it helpful.
Yes, I believe there is a new audience which can benefit from your posts. Hyper-preterism is dangerous and worth fighting. Please keep re-posting them.
I was tempted not to note its previous publication date just to see if Dave would try to claim someone else wrote it. He flatters himself greatly… I was writing nearly the same things I write today before I ever was even remotely aware of him and his little band of Internet heretics. Actually the person I interacted with the most back in 2005 was Sam Frost. He posted on my blog back when it was on a blogger account, before I moved to a wordpress platform, and the blog was called d-dizzle fo shizzle, it wasn’t even called the Preterist Blog.
[note: I moved the posts from blogger, so the originally date might even be earlier, I don't remember if there was a clean way to export the posts or if I merely reposted them in 2005 from a 2004 or 2003 incarnation.]
These are great observations, but from memory Bahnsen thought the harlot was Rome. Also, Gentry gets the beginning and end of the Revelation right, but has no idea what the middle is about because he uses Josephus to interpret it rather than the OT. He thinks it’s all about the Jewish war, but the book describes events from the Ascension to AD70 (the history catches up with real time when John receives the little book).
Dee Dee, if you don’t have Jordan’s lectures I would be happy to send you a set. I listened to Gentry’s and thought they were OK, but a lot of it seemed forced. Jordan uses the Revelation as a window on the rest of the Bible — he shows where the structures and types are drawn from, why they appear in the order they do, and how they applied to the first century situation.
An example would be: Gentry stating that the hail refers to stones catapulted into the city. Jordan takes it back to the references to hail in the Old Testament, which in turn go back to the divided waters in Genesis 1, and the crystal sea. All the action takes place in God’s “globe theatre” as a worship service, and Jordan understands the architecture.
Mike, I have read some of Jordan and don’t care for it. It is like how Wilson described some of Chilton, all glitter and unicorns. And for right or wrong, ever since he caved on hyperpreterism being heresy, I can’t trust him.
Dee Dee, I found Jordan a bit weird to start with, and don’t agree with everything he says. But he doesn’t read the Revelation in a “literary vacuum” like Gentry does. He reads the entire “cultic core” of the Old Testament into the book, and it works. This only looks speculative because we haven’t done our homework. In comparison, despite the fact that his work appeals to the modern mind, it’s Gentry’s work that is speculative.
right now Mike we will have to agree to disagree, and my point about his caving to hyperpreterists remains. It may be a weakness on my part but I can’t get past that.
Mike,
Have you ever read any of Andrew Perriman’s work?
Possibly real Christianity is a lot closer (not identical mind you) to “glitter and unicorns”than to any form of hyper-rationalistic deductivistic Scholasticism…whether these be posing as “Roman Catholicism”, “High Lutheranism”, or “Calivinism”.
And perhaps its not. Thank you for your insults though, I really needed them to start out my Friday morning.
Sorry if you have interpreted my disagreement as an insult. You have some absolutely brilliant insights in your blogs and podcasts, which I read with amazement. I just think that you (and 90% of Reformed theologians) err on the side of putting too much trust in rationality. If I had to choose between that error and the opposite extreme of the Existential theologians (aka “liberals”) I would gladly choose the rationalists.
At any rate, don’t take anything some fuddy-duddy mystic like me says too seriously! Have a great Friday!