[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

And the weak, frail, mortal human race can now see in Scriptures this One, while yet on earth, in full dependence upon the Father's will and speaking. He was completely dependent and utterly obedient. "He trusted in Him, let Him come down and save Him now" (Psa 22:8; Matt 27:43). The vulnerability of the mortal Christ on earth, which He overcome with faith and trust and hope and obedience, is now a vision beckoning to all those vulnerable creatures who follow.

We are weak, and mortal, because of our venality. The weight of our crimes, both individual and collective, hang heavy. Yet it pleased God that the weight of our sins would be placed on a frail, mortal human body such as our own. One of our own rescued us. And this One was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, exalted now forevermore.

It seems that the "Processed Triune God" metric of WL somehow sidestepped this. The Incarnated Jehovah superseded the clear and repeated image of a frail, mortal Man. So when the frail mortal man cried out in trouble, in type, in the poetry of psalms, WL dismissed that as vanity.

Psalm 31:1
In You, O Jehovah, do I take refuge;

Never let me be put to shame.

Rescue me in Your righteousness.

The RecV footnote says, "In this psalm David speaks of God's saving him from distress. However, God's salvation for the New Testament believers is not mainly from their distress. In His salvation God sustains and strengthens His believers in their distresses that they may live and magnify Christ (Phil. 1:19-21a)."

Yet where is the Father rescuing Jesus Christ from death? This is the one, singular narrative, in which all others find their home. This is the "one ring to rule them all", a la JRR Tolkien. Apart from this, WL's "New Testament believers" have nothing. Yet it is ignored.

Psalm 31:9-17

9 Be gracious to me, O Jehovah, for I am in distress. My eye is wasted away with grief, Indeed my soul and body.

10 For my life has been consumed in sorrow, And my years, in sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity, And my bones have wasted away.

11 Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach, And especially so to my neighbors, And something dreaded to my acquaintances; Those who see me on the street flee from me.

12 I am forgotten, like a dead man out of mind; I am like a destroyed vessel.

13 For I hear the slander of many; Terror is on every side. When they take counsel together against me, They scheme to take my life.

14 But I trust in You, O Jehovah; I say, You are my God.

15 My times are in Your hand; Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who pursue me.

16 Cause Your face to shine upon Your servant; Save me in Your lovingkindness.

17 O Jehovah, do not let me be put to shame when I call out to You; Let the wicked be put to shame; let them be silent in Sheol.

The only RecV footnote here was for verse 9. "David's distress included his grief, sorrow, and the reproach of his opposers. The believers today who follow the Lord also suffer much distress, including persecution. In the NT, however, the apostle Paul did not complain about his distress. Rather, he said that all things worked together for his good that he, as one of God's many sons, could be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God."

I find this assessment to be rather subjective. In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, "Now my soul is troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me out of this hour. But for this reason I have come to this hour." (v.27)

What? Jesus was troubled?

And, Jesus wept? (11:35)

Jesus groaned? "He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled"? (11:32, NIV)

"Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb." (11:38, NIV).

These few gospel fragments show the inner life being revealed. In actuality, the inner life was continually poured out before the Father in heaven. But it was done typically in secret, behind the proverbial "closed door" (e.g. Matt 6:6; see also Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16). Occasionally the disciples got witness of that - "And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." (Luke 22:44 NIV)

Yet what was He praying? Was He praying Paul's epistles? Here is the RecV footnote on Psalm 29: "David's prayer and praise in this psalm is too much in the material and physical realm and cannot compare with the prayer and praise in the New Testament"

Oh, really? So if Paul, in the New Testament, encouraged the "word of Christ to dwell in you richly, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," then that should be rather the NT prayers and blessings that now compose the body of the "word of Christ"? Do you think Paul actually wanted us to take the Psalms out of the repertoire and simply replace them with his own writings? WL seems hopeful that this is the case. I disagree. This seems to be some kind of sleight-of-hand trick: the NT writer recommends the OT writings to dwell in you richly, but the NT expositor WL says, "Don't bother. Stick with the NT. It's much better." But did the actual NT writings in any way promote or suggest that idea? I say, quite the contrary.

Romans 8:3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,

When WL read the Psalms he certainly saw the "weak flesh" and the "troubled soul" but he missed its typification of the Seed of David, the Son of Man, the coming prophesied Messiah. Even though the NT constantly alludes to this, WL conceded it only when absolutely necessary. It apparently wasn't helpful to his "Processed Triune God" and "New Testament Economy" metrics.

I repeat that WL isn't entirely to blame for this exegetical mess. I grew up in Protestantism, where the viability of the NT was taken for granted, and its constant appeals to the OT were supposedly safe to ignore. The NT was scripture, and portrayed Christ. The OT, on the other hand, seemed to talk about the Jews, history, the law (which was now rendered moot by the age of grace), etc. It was useful for some background, if you really wanted to pursue it. But it could be safely and profitably ignored. Like WL put it, "Stick to he high peak revelations of the NT". But the NT was clearly building its revelations out of the OT material. The foretold coming Messiah, being fulfilled by the Man Jesus of Nazareth, was its nearly constant theme. And that included His being ground down to nothing, suffering and being lowered to the shameful death of a slave. All the "high peaks" of the NT are built on this one foundation. When Philip told Nathaniel in John 1:45, "We have found Him", that clearly presupposed common understanding of the typified Messiah alluded to in scriptures. But the gospel narrative repeatedly stressed that the disciples' ideas of this typified Messiah had missed the suffering and dying part. They can be forgiven a little quicker than today's Bible expositors, who have less excuse for ignorance.

So when David says, "You will rescue me" and "You will save me" and "I trust in You" and even, "I obey You. My hands are clean and You delight in Me" I don't think we should be so quick as WL was, to dismiss it out of hand as merely the vanity of David's fallen human imagination. There was One Man who redeemed these declarations; in fact He was even known in NT parlance as the incarnated Word Himself. He lived out this word because He was the Word. And now His sent Spirit makes this Word come alive in our hearts, as we exercise our mouths. This is why the apostle also says that we will be "filled in Spirit" by enjoying this word (Eph 5:18,19). Gee, it sounds something like God's New Testament Economy to me!