What Happens When We Read the Scriptures as Scripture?

Over at the blog Pontifications, the author (Alvin Kimel) makes some interesting observations with respect to biblical hermeneutics. Kimel begins by stating that any biblical passage must be interpreted within its larger context in order to ascertain its literal meaning and authorial intent. Little shock there. But what happens when a six-chapter book like Galatians, a few hundred years after it is written, now finds itself to be but a small part in a sixty six-chapter book like the Bible? All of a sudden, the context of Galatians is much larger than it is when consid-ered in isolation.

Why is this significant? Well, if Galatians is not a book but a chapter in a Book, and if that Book of which Galatians is a chapter is authored ultimately by God, then in the same way that Galatians 4 must be read in the light of the epistle’s other five chapters, so Galatians as a whole must be read in the light of the rest of Scripture in its entirety. And if context determines and expands a text’s meaning, then the epistle’s human authorial intent may not be the same as its divine authorial intent. In a word, when we read Galatians as Scripture, its literal meaning may or may not be identical to its canonical meaning.

This, Kimel argues, is why the grammatical-historical method of interpretation alone is insufficient for determining a biblical text’s true significance. According to this approach, anyone can interpret the Bible provided they have the requisite tools and employ the proper methodology. “Poppycock!” Kimel says (or at least he would have if he appreciated how awesome that word is). The Bible is not like any other book, nor is it merely a species of a broader genus known as “Holy Writings.” Scripture is sui generis, unique, one-of-a-kind, meaning that even if a passage’s literal meaning can be deduced, its sensus plenior—or fuller sense—is beyond the grasp of the mere earthling.

The point, as the Reformers insisted, is that the Bible is the church’s book and must be interpreted in conjunction with, and never in isolation from, those who have gone before us. Moreover, Kimel (citing Swinburne approvingly) draws the conclusion that if Paul himself taught a seminary class on his own writings, his voice would be but one of many seeking to determine the true meaning of the epistles he penned. And further still, since the Bible is unique and one-of-a-kind, the rules for interpreting it cannot arise from Scripture itself (any more than I could invent a new language and then write a book attempting to teach you, in my new language, how to speak it). No, Kimel says, hermeneutical principles must arise from within the community to which Scripture has been given, and from which it has emerged. And more specifically, the task of interpreting Holy Writ is given to those who have been set aside and ordained for the task, i.e., ministers of the Word lawfully called.

So much for American, egalitarian, Bible only-ism….

Confessional Minimalism or Maximalism?

I have been thinking lately about the nature of the minister's relationship and obligation to the doctrinal standards of his church. Do we take a minimalist approach, which only asks that he not contradict the teaching of his confession, or is a maximalist approach to be preferred, which insists that he positively affirm his church's doctrines and promise not to stray outside the parameters of his confession?

Of the seven ordination vows a PCA minister must affirm, the second reads as follows:

Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of this Church, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures; and do you further promise that if at any time you find yourself out of accord with any of the fundamentals of this system of doctrine, you will on your own initiative, make known to your Presbytery the change which has taken place in your views since the assumption of this ordination vow?

In the light of this statement, one may reasonably enquire whether it is legitimate to posit an additional, supplementary version of a specific confessional doctrine which contradicts the confession's teaching, but claims the freedom to do so because it is just reflecting the broader teaching of Scripture on the subject in question.

For example, the Westminster Standards teach that union with Christ is a "special benefit" enjoyed by the "members of the invisible church," and that by this union "the elect... are spiritually and mystically, yet really and inseparably" joined with Christ (WLC 65-66). The "inseparable" nature of this union precludes "true believers" from "totally or finally falling away from a state of grace" (WLC 79). Finally, the various benefits of Christ's mediation, such as "justification, adoption, and sanctification," are given to "the members of the invisible church" as "manifestations of their union with him."

Now here's my question: If the phrase "union with Christ" is not found in the Bible, and if the various prepositional phrases used to denote this concept are also used in passages that plainly teach that the connection can be broken, then what is the responsibility of the expositor of Scripture at this point?

Should he (1) Teach that there are two kinds of "union with Christ," the Westminster kind and the John 15 kind? Or, (2) Teach that "union with Christ" refers to what the Standards are referring to, and insist that the John 15 phenomenon be called something else? Or, (3) Teach whatever version of "union with Christ" his passage is referring to without any qualification whatsoever?

The Hermeneutics of Convenience

I find it interesting how arbitrary we Christians can be with respect to what we think is Scripture's clear position on various hot-button issues. What most discussions amount to, at the end of the day, is that the Bible condemns all the things I don't like, while the things I approve of either enjoy the divine stamp of approval, or are at the most unaddressed, or murkily so.

So if you're an American evangelical, then the Bible obviously condemns abortion, while the War on Terror is tantamount to Israel's storming of Jericho. The fact that the former position rests on little direct biblical evidence while the latter rests on bad eschatology seldom comes up, if at all.

If you're a European or British Christian, on the other hand, you are most likely passionately in favor of movements like Make Trade Fair and movies like SiCKO (both of which are considered by Americans as rather liberal).

The same "wink, wink" tactics are employed in the political arena. While Republicans and Democrats disagree over whether the Iraq War is being fought correctly, there is little discussion over whether the U.S. has the right to invade other countries if it sees fit to do so. The two parties may differ on the degree to which the federal government should spend money on social programs for the poor, but there is complete agreement on the glories of the free market.

Regardless of which kingdom we're dealing with, and of what our personal convictions may be with respect to it, it is certainly a healthy thing to lay aside the hermeneutics of convenience every now and then and allow our sacred cows to be challenged. Maybe we'll end up standing our ground, but at least we'll have the benefit of saying that we weren't afraid of a little scrutiny now and again.

The Word, the Church, and the Regula Fidei

"For the first three centuries," Keith Mathison argues in his The Shape of Sola Scriptura, "we find a general consensus regarding authority." This consensus was that the Scriptures of the Old Testament, together with those of the New once they were compiled, were understood to be the sole source of inspired revelation.

"The Scripture," he continues,

"... was to be interpreted by the Church and in the Church within the context of the regula fidei.... The Church was the interpreter and guardian of the Word of God, and the regula fidei was a summary of the apostolic preaching and the hermeneutical context of the Word of God. But only Scripture was the Word of God."

As an example of the regula fidei ("rule of faith") Mathison lists the Apostles' Creed. Thus, while such a creed is not inspired or infallible, it does hold a derivative, secondary authority which allows it to function as a hermeneutical boundary-marker. So when an individual or a church interprets the Bible in such a way that contradicts the apostolic tradition (regula fidei), that interpretation should be viewed with suspicion.

This view has been dubbed "Tradition 1."

What are some strengths or potential pitfalls of this position?

Covenantal Prolegomenon

"The doctrine of the covenants," writes David VanDrunen, "can itself unite the various strands of theology into a unified, coherent, and harmonious whole." The Bible, after all, is more than an ecclectic and hasily-thrown-together gaggle of battle accounts, prophecies, parables, and personal letters. It is the story of the creation, fall, redemption, and consummation of all things, the playwright and director of which is God, and the lead character in which is his Son.

So let's unpack this idea that "all of the basic realms that systematic theology investigates are defined in covenantal terms," shall we?

VanDrunen begins with Prolegomenon, which is basically a fancy codeword for our method of doing theology, the various tools we need in order to begin our task. Building upon Michael Horton's work, VanDrunen argues that we should allow the Bible itself to provide us with our theological and hermeneutical method, rather than our bringing our own preferred method to the table.

A "covenantal prolegomenon," therefore, would begin with the biblical insistence, echoed in WFC vii.1, that the relationship between the Creator and his creatures occurs through a "voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant." In other words, we do not relate to God in a purely individual capacity, but collectively and covenantally.

As passages like Jeremiah 31:35-36, 33:20-26, Psalm 19, and Romans 1 demonstrate, "Man's first contact with nature, both that within and outside of himself, confronts him with the powerful Deity who is none other than covenant Lord.... In this light," VanDrunen concludes, "prolegomenon is thoroughly covenantal."

So what think ye? A worthwhile project? A stretch?

Westminster Systematics: An Oxymoron?

In his essay entitled "A System of Theology? The Centrality of Covenant for Westminster Systematics," Westminster Seminary California's Associate Professor of Systematic Theology David VanDrunen begins with "the provocative question of whether the Westminster Seminaries have ever actually done systematic theology." He argues that Murray, Gaffin, and Strimple were actually exegetes, not systematicians, "perform[ing] their 'systematics' task by exegeting passages related to various topics under consideration, [while remaining] relatively uninterested in developing a system as such" (see The Pattern of Sound Doctrine, p. 195-220).

Toward developing such a system, VanDrunen suggests that "the Reformed doctrine of the covenants [is] the place where a system of theology can be centered and from which it can emerge in orderly coherence and biblical fidelity" (p. 196).

Before outlining what this might look like, a few caveats are offered. First, since all theology arises from Scripture, "the rigorous exegesis that has marked the tradition must be sacrosanct." Further, Vos's appreciation for a redemptive-historical hermeneutic must be maintained, with biblical theology functioning as a servant of systematics. VanDrunen's final concern is to not allow a system to be forced upon Scripture as a straitjacket that controls exegesis and stifles God's Word.

As long as systematics' various loci are arranged around a single doctrine (justification for Lutherans, predestination for hyper-Calvinists), these dangers are not likely to be avoided. But if the Scripture itself provides "a way of expressing the unity and coherence of the whole of Reformed doctrine, an architectonic structure that undergirds all of the various threads of revealed truth," then we can begin taking steps in the right direction.

This idea that "centers" the system while not being "the center" of it, is the doctrine of the covenants. In subsequent posts I plan to flesh this out with the good professor's help. Stay tuned....

God and Coppertone

One of the touchiest areas in preaching is the part that is usually tacked on at the end of the sermon: application. Now you may be thinking, "What's so hard about application? Just tell me how to put the biblical passage into practice." But God is not like Coppertone -- he's just not that easy to apply.

As creatures made in God's image, we are "wired" for law. By this I mean that, unlike the gospel, which is foreign and counterintuitive, the law is in us by nature. Whether it's "Five Simple Steps for Victorious Living" or "Ten Ways to Improve Our Marriages," the fact is undeniable that the imago Dei in us craves instruction, and the American in us believes that if we put our minds to it, by golly, we can accomplish anything.

When we add to our moral self-confidence the fact that we are hopelessly self-obsessed, practical application becomes even more tricky. You see, the notion that the Bible is not actually about us, but about Jesus Christ, is rather offensive to our fragile egos. Hence the promise on the websites of our megachurches that the messages given contain helpful principles that can be used in the "real world" (which means my world). But when all the minister does is talk about Jesus and what he has done the complaint quickly arises, "But what does all that have to do with ME?"

I'm not suggesting we jettison practical application, but I am suggesting that we alter our approach to it. Rather than viewing God as a commodity that religious consumers use to improve their lives, ought we not reorient our lives to make them useful for him and his purposes? And instead of reducing God to a "co-pilot" whose occasional advice helps steer the ship of our lives, shouldn't we see ourselves as hopelessly shipwrecked without him, and him alone, at the helm?

It is only after we humbly acknowledge that we are but small parts of something much greater and grander than oursleves that we will ever be ready to be told what to do.

A Kinder, Gentler Moses?

I realize I'm doing this out of order, but as a follow-up to my last post on Christ in the Prophets I'd like to discuss the issue of preaching Christ from the Law.

Again, we must beware of the danger of simply drawing the line from the Old Testament commandment straight to ourselves. I realize we're a self-obsessed and narcissistic lot, but our need for self-application can easily get us into trouble.

The Penteteuch (the five books of Moses) forms the foundation of the covenant that Yahweh made with Israel on Mount Sinai. That may sound rather obvious, but please don't miss the point. The Mosaic Covenant had some important distictives that radically affect how its commandments come to us on this side of the cross and empty tomb. The most significant of these distinctives is the "works principle" that stands behind the various laws and precepts of the Old Covenant. Paul sums up this works principle by quoting Leviticus 18:5:

"For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them" (Rom. 10:5 cf.Gal. 3:12).

Looming over the entire Sinaitic legislation were the promised blessings for obedience and threatened curses for disobedience. If Israel did what they swore they would do, then they would enjoy long life in the land of Canaan, but if they transgressed the law, they would suffer the covenant curses, culminating in exile.

What about us today? Do we labor under the constant threat of disinheritance? Is our standing in continual jeopardy?

Absolutely not. All of the curses of the law have been poured out upon Jesus Christ, the second Adam and true Israelite. The terror of Sinai has been swallowed by the mercy of Zion, and God's children are now free to obey him as full-grown heirs whose future inheritance has been brought forward into the present by virtue of the indwelling Spirit if the risen Christ.

In a word, Jesus suffered the exile which the Babylonian captivity foreshadowed in order to elicit obedience from his children without fear. He is neither a "kinder, gentler Moses" nor a harsh tyrant whose sermon on the mount ratcheted up God's demands while providing no hope for their fulfillment. Rather, as Paul assured the Romans, "Christ is the end of the law for righteouness to everyone who believes" (10:4).

Moralism, Character Studies, and Daring to be a Daniel

In my last post I used the oft-employed sermon title “Dare to be a Daniel” as an example of moralistic preaching. Let me explain....

When reading the Old Testament, the temptation arises to try to relate directly to the biblical characters in order to make the passage relevant to our lives today. “Daniel didn't back down in the face of pagan adversity,” we think to ourselves, “and therefore the message of this text is that I shouldn't back down either.”

This hermeneutic is perfectly illustrated by the lyrics and cover art of Keith Green's album No Compromise. The cover depicts an ancient scene in which a multitude of people is bowing before a pagan ruler, with one courageous man in their midst standing upright in defiance. The lyric says, “No empty words, no white lies, no token prayers, no compromise.”

Now please do not misunderstand me. I’m not saying that Old Testament characters like Daniel provide no examples for us to aspire to. What I am saying, though, is that drawing the line directly from them to ourselves is a misguided and dangerous method for devotional reading, hermeneutics, and (especially) Christian preaching.

The fact is that Daniel, brave though he may have been at times, was still a fallen prophet. Moreover, his ministry of pointing Israel to the soon-to-be-realized deliverance from captivity resulted in a return to the same Mosaic economy that was powerless to prevent their exile in the first place.

The “line,” therefore, must be drawn from Daniel, through Christ, and then to us. When we read the prophet from this side of the cross and empty tomb, we realize that he applies to our current situation because he both points to, and demonstrates the need for, the true “Prophet whom the Lord God would raise up from among his brethren” (Acts 3:22; cf. Deut. 18:15), the very Prophet who was “not without honor save in his own country” (Mark 6:4), and who alone among the children of men stood tall amid the onslaught of the serpent’s temptations (Matt. 4:1ff; cf. Gen. 3:1ff). The Lord Jesus Christ, not Daniel, is the One who dared not compromise, but chose rather to be obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

When the central Figure in all of Scripture is marginalized or altogether forgotten, all the hearer is left with is the courageous example of a fallen man in a sermon that could just as easily have been preached in a synagogue, mosque, or Promise Keepers convention.

When Jesus Doesn't Jump Off The Page

OK, we've established that any exposition of a text that neglects to set forth "Christ and him crucified" ultimately falls short of being a Christian sermon. But how is the preacher to (legitimately) find Christ in an obscure Old Testament text? Genesis 22 or Isaiah 53 are easy, but what about less obviously Christological passages?

Let me provide an example from a portion of Scripture where Jesus doesn't exactly jump off the page at you: Ezra 3:10-13.

********

In this passage, the newly-returned exiles have begun to rebuild their temple, but upon the laying of the foundation, the emotions of the people were mixed. Many cried out for joy at God's faithfulness, but others (particularly the elderly who remembered Solomon's temple) lifted up their voices and wept, so that "the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping."

Coupled with this obviously "small beginning" and the lingering trouble posed by Israel's enemies outside the camp was a palpable sense of anticlimax that clung to this whole venture. Yes, Israel was back in the land, but they were still laboring under the same covenant that had both threatened and foretold the exile from which they had just been liberated. In a word, they were in no better a position than they were in before their captivity. The law, the temple, the priesthood -- indeed the entire Mosaic Covenant -- screamed at them "DO THIS AND LIVE!" If Israel obeyed, they were promised blessing and long life in the land. But if they failed (again), a threatened curse loomed on the horizon. The law could command, but it could not renew. Hence the bittersweetness of this building project.

So was this it? Was this the promised restoration that God's people had been longing for? Was it their fate to forever worship him under the constant threat of disinheritance?

Absolutely not! About 560 years later, in that very spot on the temple mount, a Man stood and cried, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (which his disciples later learned was a reference to his resurrection). And concerning the physical temple that then stood, he simply said, "Do you see this temple? Not one stone will be left upon another which shall not be thrown down."

God's people no longer labor under the harsh tyranny of the law which, metaphorically speaking, commanded bricks to be made while providing no straw. Rather, we worship under a New Covenant, the blood of whose Mediator speaks better things than that of Abel. The law commands "Do this and live," while the gospel cries out, "It is finished!"

********

The more we read the Bible Christocentrically, the more we'll see him on every page. And pretty soon we'll become so trained to expect Christ to be preached in every sermon that the usual moralism ("Dare to be a Daniel!") and therapeutic pop psychology ("Ten Steps for Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World") will no longer suffice. God's children need to feed on the Gospel of the crucified and risen Christ, not on the Law of a kinder and gentler Moses.

Tell Me the Story

In U2's version of a lament psalm ("Wake Up Dead Man") Bono pleads,

Tell me,
Tell me the story;
The one about eternity,
And the way it's all gonna be.

This is a common theme in the biblical canon as well. It seems like God is constantly in the business of performing redemptive acts and then talking about them. Virtually every time he addressed his people in Old Testament times he began by reminding them, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Deut. 5:6). Entire chapters of Scripture are devoted to rehearsing God's mighty acts in history (Ex. 15; Ps. 78).

In the church today, however, we often hear that the pastor's message must be "relevant" and "applicable to daily life." God, it seems, is a character in my drama, rather than the other way around.

But when God's people today corporately gather around Word and Sacrament, it is not to re-align God's priorities to match our own, but to re-align and re-orient ourselves to him. He has taken our plotless and pointless lives and rescripted them, writing us into his cosmic drama of which he is the Playwright and Director, and in which Jesus Christ, and not we, has the starring role.

Christ-centered preaching, therefore, does not force the Savior into the sermon or cleverly leap from an obscure text to Jesus, but it takes the trees (the verses being expounded) and properly situates them in the forrest (the larger story of redemption). In a word, faithful preaching addresses a "people who were once not a people" and re-constitutes them as "the people of God" and as newly-added characters in the epic tale that he is telling.

Christ-Centered Preaching

Proponents of "Christ-Centered Preaching" (such as Bryan Chapell, President of Covenant Seminary, and Michael Horton, Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California) argue that the Person and work of Jesus Christ is the central message of the Bible, and therefore any sermon that fails to do justice to Scripture's central message necessarily fails in its primary task.

The New Testament abounds with evidence for the Christ-centeredness of God's revelation; Luke 24:27, 44-45 is a characteristic example:

"And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.... Then he said to them, 'These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.' Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures."

But the matter is far from settled.

There are those who argue that, while Christ is certainly to be preached from passages where he is explicitly mentioned or typified, to force him into every text is an unnatural imposition that does damage to the message of that particular passage.

There are others who agree with Christ-centered preaching in theory, but have difficulty making the transition from the (perhaps obscure) text to Christ. The result is often an awkward jump from "Samuel hacked Agag into pieces" to "Sick of being 'hacked to pieces' by the world? Come to Jesus!"

And finally, evidence suggests that the majority of evangelical pastors consider messages focusing on the cross and resurrection to be irrelevant to modern church-goers. The Gospel is great for unbelievers, but once they're "in," they need practical messages that are useful in "the real world."

Into which category do you fit?

"We Preach Christ...."

"Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom," Paul wrote in I Corinthians 1:22-23, "but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles."

Was Paul using hyperbole here? Did he really "preach Christ crucified" in every sermon?

For many today, what has become known as "Christ-Centered Preaching" runs the risk of blunting the sharp edges of biblical imperatives (for example, after reading the command that Christians should love God and neighbor, the minister says, "Well since we can't do this, it's a good thing Jesus died for us!"). Further, "redemptive-historical preaching" is often considered tantamount to preaching the same sermon every week with a different text ("In John 11:35 we read, 'Jesus wept.' Now you'll remember that Adam was originally created good....").

What are we to make of Christ-centered preaching? Redemptive-historical preaching? How do these differ from the Puritan method of Doctrine, Reason, Use? What role does "application" play in preaching? And perhaps most importantly, How on earth do we make an ancient text relevant for the (post)modern hearer?

Amillennialism, Fifth and Final Post

OK, so what do we do with the first six verses of Revelation 20?

The biggest clue, to me at least, is the binding of Satan. The usual method of understanding this verse unfolds as follows: "Hmmm... what would the world be like if Satan were bound? [Insert utopian fantasy here]. But the world doesn't look like that, so I guess the binding of Satan must happen during the millennium."

Side note: In Dispensational hermeneutics, the "millennium" is the catch-all category into which we stick all prophecies that are not fulfilled to one's liking.

But if we compare Scripture with Scripture -- more specifically, Revelation 20:2 with Matthew 12:29 -- we will see that the binding of Satan occurs as the result of Christ's inauguration of the kingdom at his first coming. Then when you factor in Paul's statements about Satan being "disarmed" (Col. 2:15), and John's claim that Christ has "destroyed the works of the devil" (I John 3:8), it becomes clear that, by his death and resurrection, the Seed of the woman dealt the coup de grâce to "that old serpent, who is the devil and Satan." The "thousand years," therefore, are concurrent with the devil's binding.

"But it has been almost two thousand years! Why does John say 'a thousand'?"

Because Revelation is an apocalyptic book, and that's how apocalyptic books say things. In fact, a careful reader of this prophecy would be hard pressed to find even one number that is used in a non-symbolical way.

Does God have seven Spirits? Did the church of Philadelphia experience a trial that lasted sixty minutes? Does Jesus have seven eyes?

The sooner we begin reading Revelation according to its genre rather than trying to force it into a straitjacket more suited to a book like Romans, the sooner we'll be able to get past all the cloak-and-dagger, Missleresque, woodenly literal weirdness and actually get the book's point:

"And the God of peace shall crush Satan under your feet shortly."

Amillennialism, Part Four

All of the OT promises made to Abraham are, thousands of years later, still the topic of debate. What did God promise to the patriarch? And who can lay claim to those promises today?

God promised to Abraham a seed, and a land for them to dwell in (Gen. 12:7). It is absolutely crucial to understand that, with all of the Abrahamic promises, there is a two-stage fulfillment that unfolds throughout redemptive history.

At the first stage, the seed promise was fulfilled in the raising up of the nation of Israel from the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Likewise, the first-stage fulfillment of the land promise was the gift of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey.

But the first-stage fulfillments were provisional, temporary, and most importantly, typological. And what's more, when you get to the New Testament, the land of Canaan and the physical nation of Israel fade into the background and are eclipsed by something far greater.

You see, it is the second stage of fulfillment that Jesus, Paul, and the rest of the New Testament writers were concerned with.

According to them, the true fulfillment of the land promise is realized in the new heavens and new earth (Rom. 4:13; II Pet. 3:13; Heb. 11:10; 12:22). And even more significant is the fact that the "seed of Abraham," to whom all of the covenant promises apply, is Jesus Christ and those united to him by faith... just like Abraham was (Gal. 3:7-16; Rom. 9:6-8).

So how does this all relate to amillennialism?

Well, from these considerations it is clear that the notion that God still has promises to fulfill for a physical, geo-political nation, and further, that he must fulfill these promises by means of earthly sacrifices offered in a literal temple within the bounds of a piece of real estate in Palestine, is nothing more than a retreat back into the types and shadows of a now-obsolete covenant (Heb. 8:13).

To adopt the Dispensational (read: pre-trib) hermeneutic, therefore, is to adopt the hermeneutic of the scribes and Pharisees. To them, ethnic status and national privileges really were sufficient to secure God's blessings.

Which, of course, means that Christ died for nothing (Gal. 2:21).

Amillennialism, Part Two

There's an ancient and very helpful hermeneutical principle that must come into play at this point: Unclear passages must be understood in the light of the clearer ones.

This means that Revelation 20:1ff will have to wait, at least for now. As any non-biased observer can surely admit, verses about angels with keys to bottomless pits binding dragons with great chains are pretty complicated and, dare I say, less-than-clear. So let's begin elsewhere and make our way to the apocalyptic stuff.

How about, say, I Corinthians 15:21-25? This is as good a starting pont as any: it's clear, didactic, and unadorned with apocalyptic idiom. We read in this text that there will be an order in which the resurrection of the body takes place: "Christ the firstfruits, then those who are Christ's at his coming" (v. 23). So Jesus was raised on the third day a couple thousand years ago, and then we will be raised when he returns.

Then what? The millennium? Nope. The thousand-year reign on the earth? Uh-uh.

"Then comes the end, when [Jesus] delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (vv. 24-26).

Hmmm.... So Jesus reigns until the last enemy is destroyed, which according to v. 26 is death. But according to vv. 54-55, death will be finally defeated at Christ's second coming -- then shall it be said, "Death is swallowed up in victory." This means that Jesus' return doesn't inaugurate his earthly kingdom, it consummates it! Which is precisely what Paul says in v. 23-24.

If there ever were a time to at least mention the millennium, this would have been the place to do it. But not only does Paul say nothing about it, his description of the end makes it impossible.

Unless, of course, millions of people can somehow die after Christ defeats death....