Written by Tyler S. Fulcher | What I'm Reading, Theology
I routinely read academic books and articles about the Bible, Theology, and Church History. I write these 'What I'm Reading' posts to share some of the insights I'm gaining from these works.
Citation: Rowe, Christopher Kavin. “Biblical Pressure and Trinitarian Hermeneutics.” Pro Ecclesia 11, no. 3 (2002): 295–312.
Rather than offer a thesis statement at the beginning of his article, Rowe brings the reader along slowly before concluding the paper with a succinct statement of his central claim.
"To read the Bible in light of later trinitarian dogma is to read the Bible in light of the reality of God himself as he has pressured us through his Word, that is, his speaking, to speak about him." (p. 312)
In his introduction, Rowe claims that a central question of the Christian faith concerns the relationship between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament.
A brief survey of Church History or a sampling of modern podcasts about the Bible shows that many people have struggled and continue to struggle to reconcile the supposedly wrathful God of the Old Testament with the supposedly merciful God of the New Testament.
While the apparent contradiction between the God of the OT and the God of the NT is often stated in terms of wrath and mercy, it can be observed on a more fundamental level. There is a tension between these two seemingly irreconciliable descriptions of God: (1) the Holy One of Israel and (2) the Triune God.
How can the triune God of Christianity be related to the God of monotheistic Judaism?
Rowe contrasts the answers of two well-known Old Testament scholars.
Claus Westermann argues that the Trinity is a foreign imposition on the Old Testament, and Christians could only make that theological move once they were disconnected from the Old Testament.
Brevard Childs, on the other hand, argues that the Bible exerts a kind of pressure that invites the reader to see the Trinity as the fullest expression of Israel's God, Yahweh.
Rowe contends for Childs' position. Trinitarian language is not a foreign imposition on the Old Testament. Instead, it arises as a necessity if one takes both the Old Testament and the New Testament as a unified composition. The Trinity would not arise from either the OT or NT in isolation. The insistence that the two are united produces the situation necessary for the development of Trinitarian language.
Rowe builds his argument on a few fundamental observations.
First, the Old Testament unequivocally emphasizes that Yahweh must be worshipped alone.
This point may be nuanced by a fuller treatment of ancient Israel's conception of the divine. Modern scholarship has shown quite convincingly that ancient Israel was not always a monotheistic religion. In fact, there is good evidence that the early Israelites were monolatrous, meaning they worshipped Yahweh above other gods but did not believe Yahweh was the only god in existence.
With that nuance acknowledged, however, Israel and later Judaism undoubtedly transitioned to a strictly monotheistic religion. The result is that the Old Testament can and should be read as legitimately monotheistic in the sense that Rowe presupposes.
Second, the New Testament refers to Jesus and the Spirit in ways that equate both with Yahweh.
Rowe identifies several passages that use Old Testament language about Yahweh to identify Jesus and the Spirit. His argument relies, correctly in my opinion, on the fact that Greek translation of the Old Testament consistently uses the word kurios as a translation of Yahweh. Thus, several passages that use kurios as a reference to Jesus or the Spirit can be understood as equating the three figures.
Here are some of the examples Rowe cites:
Romans 10:13 (NRSV)
For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
As Rowe observes, the context of this verse clearly indicates that the Lord in question is none other than Jesus. At the same time, the verse is a quotation of Joel 3:5 in which Lord is clearly a reference to Yahweh. Thus, Paul employs an Old Testament reference to Yahweh to make a point about Jesus.
John 20:28 (NRSV)
Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!
Unlike Romans 10:13, Thomas does not quote a specific Old Testament passage. Nonetheless, as Rowe suggests, he uses language that commonly refers to Yahweh throughout the OT. Rowe cites Psalm 34:23-24 as one example. Thus, like Paul, Thomas equates the resurrected Jesus with Yahweh.
2 Corinthians 3:17a (NRSV)
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Just as Romans 10:13 and John 20:28 associate Jesus with Yahweh, 2 Corinthians 3:17a equates the Spirit with Yahweh.
Romans 8:9-11 (NRSV)
9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
This passage is dense with references to what later theologians identify as the three members of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit). As Rowe observes, "The crucial point is the interchangeability between "of Christ" and "of God" (the Father) with reference to the Spirit. Hence, 'the Spirit' in verse 9a is the 'Spirit of God' (pneuma theou) in verse 9b, and the 'Spirit of Christ' (pneuma christoü) in verse 9c" (p. 305).
What should we do with these two pieces of data?
How can we reconcile the fact that the Old Testament insists that the God of Israel (aka Yahweh) is One and the New Testament at various times equates the Father, Son, and Spirit with Yahweh?
Rowe suggests that these two pieces of data reveal a kind of canonical pressure leading to the development of Trinitarian language. While neither the Old Testament or the New Testament authors would have articulated their conception of God in Trinitarian language, the combination of the two collections of literature logically necessitated the development of such language.
The NT's appeal to the OT creates a kind of pressure that leads us to Trinitarian language. That Yahweh is both God the Father and the Son, and that the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Christ, creates a pressure to see the three as sharing one essence. If you are to take the Old Testament seriously, you must express these New Testament ideas in a way that is consistent with the OT insistence that Yahweh is One.
Rowe makes one further point.
If we take the inspiration of Scripture seriously, we must understand the Trinitarian pressure of Scripture as coming from God Himself.
Rowe writes, "It is in fact the divine will mediated through God's own Word that compels us to speak in trinitarian terms about God. We may even say that it is the presence of God himself in his Word that wills and moves us to speak in this way about God" (p. 309).
"Thus at the point of the unity of the Testaments there is a foundational trinitarian syntax that informs the pattern of language about the identity of the one Lord God of the Old Testament as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit revealed in the fullness of time in the single divine economy." (p. 306)
"The relation of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Spirit as well as the relation of Jesus' divinity and humanity had to be specified in terms consistent with the most fundamental theological thrust of the Old Testament, that of the unity and singularity of the one Creator God and the directives for exclusive worship that were inextricably bound with this God's identity. That YHWH (kyrios) is both God the Father and Jesus Christ leads of necessity to the question of 'essence,' or 'being,' most acutely at the point of the Christian worship of Jesus Christ." (p. 307)
"If the Old Testament counts for anything, we cannot worship a mere human (one who is created) instead of, in conjunction with, or over against the one God of the Old Testament. Such worship would mean rank and obvious idolatry, the total denial and destruction of Old Testament monotheism." (p. 307)
"We may go one step further yet and assert that the ontological judgments of the early ecumenical Creeds were the only satisfying and indeed logical outcome of the claims of the New Testament read together with the Old. That is to say, for a Christian faith that upholds the unity of the Bible and the continuing authority of the Old Testament, the one God is Trinity in himself, affirmed on the basis of his economic expression." (p. 308)
"The biblical text is not inert but instead exerts a pressure ('coercion') upon its interpreters and asserts itself within theological reflection and discourse such that there is (or can be) a profound continuity, grounded in the subject matter itself, between the biblical text and traditional Christian exegesis and theological formulation. Thus, in terms of this essay, the two-testament canon read as one book pressures its interpreters to make ontological judgments about the trinitarian nature of the one God" (p. 308)
"It is in fact the divine will mediated through God's own Word that compels us to speak in trinitarian terms about God. We may even say that it is the presence of God himself in his Word that wills and moves us to speak in this way about God" (p. 309)
"The New Testament in all its manifold diversity, while affirming its eschatological newness, so to speak, also claims that in the person of Jesus Christ there is none other than the God of the Old Testament, the Creator of the world" (p. 311)
For more information on Kavin Rowe, see his faculty page here.
Tyler S. Fulcher writes about the Bible, Theology, and Church History. He is a biblical scholar based in Springfield, MO. Click here to contact.