Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
The post-Christian. If that means that there are no more Christians, then we have a problem. But the term generally means something like the visible testimony of Christianity changes sufficiently that it no longer resembles the thing that is currently called Christianity. We may have the best doctrines (collectively) and think we are on the path. But we are going nowhere except on a journey being rapidly expelled from the mouth of God. (Not pointing fingers. I see myself going on that same journey as well.)
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I think we've clearly established the NT reception of Psalms. They're part and parcel of God's speaking to fallen man, "concerning His Son, Jesus Christ" (Romans 1:3). And nowhere does the NT invite us to dismiss them, even in part, as the concepts of fallen men.
But they're poetry; they're ecstatic utterances. It becomes problematic, attempting to go beyond the strict usage of the NT; even to do a kind of quasi-systematic, "thematic" attempt. Because of the subjective and personal nature of the writings they're like Rorschach tests: we see what we want to see. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews saw the verse, "Your throne, O God, is forever" and said, "This is Jesus". Wow - I bet that rattled some skulls. But if I go see angels and demons whizzing around in the text it's probably a distraction at best. Who's helped by my visions? I really don't want to start a new church or new church movement.
So how to (subjectively) interpret these highly poetic texts? Or, why even try? Well, they invite us, for one. "Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." The word itself is a lamp unto our feet - it guides us home. So we peer, and ponder, and wonder as shapes dimly emerge from the text. "We see, darkly" indeed. What I was faintly seeing, emerging from the text was the suggestive idea that they're so personal, and therefore so universal, that there is a kind of recursive "folding-over" in the text and I was publicly wondering where it stopped, if at all? Who's speaking here - the psalmist, or the Holy Spirit, or the Christ, or the "richly indwelling word" in the New Testament believer? If it is arguably all of them, then why stop at the edges of Christianity? Why not keep going on, forever?
"I come to do Your will, O God" was uttered by the prophet in oracular ecstasy, and pointed to the fulfillment by God's Christ. But anyone doing God's will can partake of this word. I'm bound by the history of my journey: I'm a Protestant and son of Protestants, a card-carrying American evangelical. But I'm becoming less limited by the creeds of my forebears and more freed by the images emerging from the text. Why presuppose the notion that "anyone who does God's will" is bound by Protestant creeds and theology as I am?
"When did we do your will?" ask the astonished guests. "Whenever you did it to the least of these my brothers" is the answer. If you give a cup of water to a prophet you get a prophet's reward. It doesn't say that only Protestants who give a cup of cold water will be blessed.
God is bigger than we are, and He's arguably bigger than our ideas. So the words of faith, trust, hope, and obedience, while pointing to God's Christ the Christian "NT believer" of WL's Psalms footnotes, are not dependent upon NT theology for substance. They certainly aren't framed by our understanding! At best they invite us to participate. "Be filled in Spirit by singing" as Paul wrote to the Ephesians. And as these "words of Christ" begin to dwell in us richly, they whisper to us of realities beyond, and we begin to gaze in wonderment; our eyes leave the earth, and look up. The text is inviting us to join God.
Yet, when Jesus said, "You will see the heavens open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man", what did He expect us to see? "The (LC) church", said WL; "which is the house of God". Angels ascending and descending are passed off by WL as "much traffic". The open heavens themselves are essentially ignored. Perhaps I (subjectively) want to run shouting after the text, "My Father, my Father, the horses and chariots of Israel!!" When the heavens open before me, I see what I want to see, not what WL wanted me to see. But at the same time I admit that a) it is subjective, b) it is provisional, and c) it ultimately awaits the proving of God.
I accept that. The day awaits.