Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
How about a couple of rules, here:
1. When we interpret scripture, let's do it consistently with NT reception patterns, and not go free-lancing, hm?
2. Once you pick a method of understanding scripture, keep it. Not either seeing "Christ" or "vanity" according to today's whims?
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Witness Lee: Psalm 119, Verses 17 and 18 say, "Deal bountifully with Your servant that I may live/And keep Your word./Open my eyes that I may behold/Wondrous things out of Your law." This indicates that the psalmist considered God's law to be His word. This is indicated also by what the psalmist says in verses 28 and 29: "My soul melts because of grief;/Strengthen me according to Your word./Remove from me the way of falsehood,/And graciously grant me Your law." These verses prove that the psalmist thought of God's law as His living and loving word breathed out of God's mouth.
I guess this is good, right? The psalmist has a good relationship, not vain, with the law? Now look at the discussion of Psalm 1.
Witness Lee: The first psalm is concerning the law. David did not know the real function of the law. He likened himself, as one who delighted in the law, to a tree growing beside streams of water and flourishing all the time (v. 3). But after Psalm 1, there is Psalm 2 concerning Christ. Then there is Psalm 3. The heading of Psalm 3 says, "A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son." The one who enjoyed the law as the streams of water by which he grew became a kind of exile due to the rebellion of his son. This happened to David because of his murder of Uriah and his taking of Uriah's wife (2 Sam. 12:10-12). The one who enjoyed the law so much in Psalm 1 became an intentional murderer. Does this show that the law works? The law does work, but not in David's way. The law works to expose us. The law exposed David to the uttermost as one who conspired to kill Uriah and rob Uriah of his wife. Does the law work or not? We have to say that the law works, not according to David's concept in Psalm 1, but according to the apostle Paul's teaching in the New Testament. Paul pointed out that the law was something added to the central line of the divine revelation to expose man's sinful nature and wicked deeds (Rom. 3:20b; 5:20a). We need this view of the law in order to understand the Psalms according to the divine concept in the New Testament. We are not in the Old Testament as David was, but we are in the New Testament.
So Psalm 119 delights in God's law because it is God's out-breathed word, but Psalm 1 delights in the law as vanity? How about a simple and consistent method, given clearly in the NT? How about, David declared reality per God's word (in the Psalms), which reality was not actualized fully in experience by David himself (a sinner) but by David's promised seed? You know, the guy named Jesus, "whom God has now made Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36) How is that so hard?
"But what does it say? 'The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart'-- that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." (Romans 10:8-10).
We believe into and confess Jesus as both Lord and Christ. This is our righteousness, our faith, our confession. When we consider Psalm 1's righteous man, whose leaf never withers, I can see Jesus. Why was this an unthinkable concept for Lee? Psalm 1, Psalm 19, Psalm 119, all point to Jesus Christ as the One on earth who knew God the Father in heaven fully by embracing God's word(or, law/testimony/statutes). John even calls Jesus the incarnate Word. Jesus' delight in the law of the LORD in Psalm 1 is therefore not vain. So why are Psalm 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc etc "vain concepts"? I mean, if the psalmist had said, "I delight in evil", okay. But where's the opening for Lee's gambit, here?