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On Redemptive Historical Method: Adopting a redemptive historical view of Scripture & discipleship is insufficient because it fails to see how Scripture itself overcomes Lessing’s Ditch with its own inherent cosmology and supernatural logic of participation in the life of Christ.
When we only harp on redemption accomplished and remain in the past tense, we objectify history in a manner foreign to the text which sees itself as one of constant recapitulation and covenantal renewal. When we think of history as “objective,” we often succumb to positivism.
Positivism reduces history to a completely external apparatus that fails to invoke moral consequences or see things in cosmic relationships. This prevents people from knowing how the story of Scripture actually incorporates them into it and it’s ethical renewal of our identity.
We think we’re giving people an objective basis for religion but we’re actually keeping it in the past tense and never bringing it into the present. Calvin himself argued that without the Spirit wrought union with Christ in the present, the Cross would be of no benefit to us.
That is why we need a cosmic backdrop to redemptive history or we won’t see how the historical is redemptive and identity changing. The Bible itself doesn’t present raw historical data but theologically organizes it and explains it in covenantal frameworks of meaning.
The false dichotomies in modern theology (conservative and liberal) have allowed a separation of theology from ethics, theology from metaphysics, history from faith, above from below, eschatology from theology, etc etc
Recovering a biblical cosmology as the backdrop to redemptive-history means a recovery of above and below, present and future, ontology and ethics, the Christ of faith and Jesus of history, Justification and Sanctification, redemption accomplished and applied, theology and ethics
and Participation and Imitation of Christ...
What’s necessary in today’s disenchanted vision of life is a cosmic perspective on discipleship that reintegrates life and doctrine without succumbing to the dialectic of the Enlightenment which conservatives and liberal succumb to.
Preaching and discipleship models that remain in the past tense of redemptive history tend to have a overinflated view of the human mind and believe discursive knowledge is the main way to disciple without ever reaching the ethical imagination of the people of God.
This type of ministry might lead to an "Apologetic Focused" view of the faith where zeal is funneled into books and facts and arguments with mathematical precision. Everyone thinks they need to be a theologian and people who don't get the lingo of theology are second-rate.
While apologetics are definitely essential and necessary, this factual view of the faith makes it Extrinsic to our daily lives and prevents our hearts from resting in God. Facts do not know us. Facts cannot love us or uphold us. Persons do.
If we are not known, truly and deeply, if we are not vulnerable before God and melted away by his love and see his work in our present lives, we will view God as a "Data-set" to be analyzed rather than adored and worshipped.
Facts are necessary. Apologetics helpful. History important. Analyzing arguments critical. But in remaining in the past tense, we will never be able to believe in the present or hope for the future.
If all of our endeavors do not lead to deeper participation in the life of God, it is for naught. If theology does not lead to an ecstatic, liturgical vision and deeper love for God in Christ by the Spirit, it is but a clanging cymbal, a noisy gong.
Addendum: biblical theology alone cannot be the source of ethics. You can make it a wax nose to support any system of thought. Constant philosophical engagement is essential for honesty and self-awareness.
