Comment: I regard Torrance’s
concept of the “essential furniture of the knowledge of God” as one of the most
important aspects of his understanding of Israel as the “womb of the
incarnation.”
Perhaps
the most important aspect of the mediation of revelation in Israel is the
formulation of permanent structures of thought and speech about God. Because the
New Testament Church is built upon the foundation of both the apostles and the
prophets, the Hebrew scriptures provided the New Testament writers with the
basic structures by which they articulated the Gospel. Thus, argues Torrance,
we can only rightly view Jesus in light of the “permanent structures of
thought” and “conceptual tools” articulated in the Old Testament, while
allowing Jesus to fill out their content and reshape them in mediating his own
self-revelation to us through them (Torrance, 1992:17, 18).
Among
the permanent structures of thought bequeathed to us by the Old Testament
writers, Torrance (1992:18) lists the following: the Word and Name of God,
revelation, mercy, truth, holiness, Messiah, saviour, prophet, priest, king,
covenant, sacrifice, reconciliation, redemption, and atonement, as well as the
basic patterns of worship set forth in the Psalms. As Torrance (1992:18, 19) notes:
It
was indeed in the course of the Old Testament revelation that nearly all the
basic concepts we Christians use were hammered out by the Word of God on the
anvil of Israel. They constitute the essential furniture of our knowledge of
God even in and through Jesus. If the Word of God had become incarnate among us
apart from all that, it could not have been grasped—Jesus
himself would have remained a bewildering enigma. It was just because Jesus,
born from above as he was, was nevertheless produced through the womb of
Israel, mediated to us through the matrix of those conceptual and linguistic
patterns, that he could be recognised as Son of God and Saviour and his
crucifixion could be interpreted as atoning sacrifice for sin. It was because
Jesus mediated his revelation to mankind in that patient, informing way through
the history of Israel and within the interpretive framework of its relation
with God in salvation and worship, that people were able in that context to
know God in Jesus and enter into communion with him, and to proclaim him to the
world.
In
“hammering out” his self-revelation on the “anvil of Israel,” God has provided,
through the matrix of “conceptual and linguistic” patterns of thought developed
in the history of Israel, the “essential furniture” of our knowledge of God, so
that we may know Jesus as Son of God and Saviour of the world. According to
Torrance (2008:42; cf. 1952:165, 166):
By
elaborate religious ritual and carefully framed laws, by rivers of blood from
millions of animal sacrifices, by the broken hearts of psalmists and the
profoundest agony of the prophets ... God taught the Jews, through centuries
and centuries of existence yoked to his word and covenant, until the truth was
imprinted upon their conscience and there was burned into their souls the meaning
of holiness and righteousness, of sin and uncleanness, of love and mercy and
grace, of faithfulness and forgiveness, of justification, atonement, and
salvation; the meaning of creation, the kingdom of God, of judgement, death,
and at last resurrection; the concept of the Messiah, the suffering servant,
and yet prophet, priest and king, and so to the very brink of the gospel.
In
providing the appropriate conceptual and linguistic structures for the mediation
of the knowledge of God, however, Kruger (1989:66) rightly calls attention to
the important point that God does not merely provide Israel a list of
statements about himself, for inevitably these would be interpreted in light of
a prior “communal meaning” which was pagan in character (cf. Torrance, 1971:147). Rather than a “theology” of God, Israel
would inevitably create what Torrance (1988a:73) refers to as “mythology,” that
is, “thinking of God from a centre in the human self and its fantasies.” As
Torrance (1971:147, 148) argues, rather than the projection of mythological
ideas onto the heavens, the mediation of true knowledge of God requires the
revision of old thoughts forms in favour of
“new forms of worship, thought, and expression.” He writes:
Hence
through the impact of the Word there were initiated in the tradition of Israel
priestly and prophetic movements which entailed critical revision of previous
ways of life, worship, and thought in order to break through the barriers of
naturalistic and pagan convention that obstructed knowledge of the living God.
As
Kruger (1989:66, 67) notes, here we see again the “two-way movement” of divine
revelation and human response, as God breaks through naturalistic and pagan
patterns of thought in order to revise the corporate life and worship of
Israel. Kruger borrows Thomas Kuhn’s (1970:99ff) words to describe the restructuring of the corporate life,
thought, and worship of Israel as a “change of paradigm.” As Kruger rightly
argues, for Torrance, the transformation and restructuring of the knowledge of
God in Israel “was not simply a matter of fine tuning a basically sufficient or
adequate framework, but of a restructuring and transformation of Israel's mind
and thought, worship and life, indeed its whole existence, in its constant
encounter with the living God in His self-revelation as the human mediator of
that revelation.”
As
Torrance (1992:22) argues, throughout the course of the progressive revelation
that unfolded throughout God’s ongoing dialogue with Israel, “the Word of God
was pressing for fuller realization and obedient expression within the life and
mind and literature of Israel.” Through the embodiment of revelation in his
historical partnership with Israel, God mediated appropriate structures of thought
and speech for understanding the Word of God that were of more than transient
value, “for under divine inspiration they were assimilated to the human form of
the Word of God, essential to its communication and apprehension.” As Chung
(2011:9; cf. Torrance, 1971:148)
notes, this continuous “divine pressing” was necessary in order for divine
revelation to be “habituated,” or firmly ingrained, in the corporate mind and
heart of Israel. Eventually, the mediation of divine revelation in Israel took
not only verbal but also written form in the Old Testament texts. For Torrance
(1971:148), the Old Testament texts are of crucial importance, because “in and through
them men continued to hear God addressing them directly and backing up His Word
by the living power and majesty of His divine Person.” Clearly, as Chung
(2011:10, 11) rightly notes, the role of scripture in the mediation of
revelation in Israel is important for Torrance’s doctrine of mediation and
should not be taken lightly.
The
revelation mediated by Israel as servant of the Lord (e.g. Is 41:8; 44:1; 45:4) inevitably pointed ahead of itself to the
incarnation (cf. Lk 2:32). In the
birth of Jesus, notes Torrance, “the whole prehistory of that mediation was
gathered up and brought to its consummation in Christ in such a way that while
transient, time-conditioned elements fell away, basic, permanent ingredients in
God’s revelation to Israel were critically and creatively taken up and built
into the intelligible framework of God’s full and final self-revelation to
mankind.” Within the matrix of his interrelations with Israel, Jesus Christ,
the Jew from Nazareth, stands forth as the “controlling centre” of the personal
self-revelation of God to humanity. Nevertheless, though it is Jesus Christ,
not Israel, that constitutes the personal self-revelation of God, it is Jesus Christ
in Israel, not apart from Israel,
that constitutes the “reality” and “substance” of divine self-disclosure. Because
Jesus Christ must always be viewed in the nexus of his interrelations with the
people of God, Torrance argues, Israel, the servant of the Lord, is included
forever within God’s chosen way of mediating knowledge of himself to the world.
Because Israel is given a permanent place in the mediation of revelation, the
Old Testament must be understood in the light of its fulfilment in Christ,
while Jesus, in turn, must be viewed in “the normative framework of basic
preconceptions divinely prepared and provided in the Old Testament Scriptures” (Torrance,
1992:22, 23).
As
Chung (2011:6) correctly notes, Torrance attaches great importance to the
conceptual and linguistic tools God forged in Israel, for they are crucial to
our understanding of the mediation of Jesus Christ. As Kruger (1989:51) notes,
the conceptual tools for the mediation of revelation forged in Israel
constitute a “hermeneutical” preparation for understanding Jesus Christ and his
work. Torrance (2008:44) captures the essential aspects of the mediation of
revelation in Israel as follows:
Apart
from this Old Testament prehistory and all the biblical revelation through
Israel, we would not have the tools to grasp the knowledge of God; apart from
the long history of the Jews we would not be able to recognize Jesus as the Son
of God; apart from the suffering and agony of Israel we would not understand
the cross of Calvary as God’s instrument to atone for sin and to enact once and
for all his word of love and pardon and grace. Apart from the covenant forged
in sheer grace with undeserving and rebellious Israel, and the unswerving
faithfulness of the divine love, we would not be able to understand the mystery
of our restoration to union with God in Jesus Christ. Apart from the context of
Israel we would not even begin to understand the bewildering enigma of Jesus.
The supreme instrument of God for the salvation of the world is Israel, and out
of the womb of Israel, Jesus, the Jew from Nazareth.
To
substantiate his argument, Torrance (1992:19) draws attention to various
attempts in modern theology to understand Jesus apart from the nexus of his
interrelations with ancient Israel. Claiming that we have tried to “gentilise”
Jesus by abstracting him from Israel and locating him “within the patterns of
our own various cultures,” Torrance argues that, as Albert Schweitzer discovered,
“we inevitably lose him.” As Chung (2011:6; 6 n. 16) rightly notes, Torrance’s
point is basic but important. When we try to make Jesus “relevant” to modern
thought, we, in fact, obscure him, because the tools we are using are not of
God’s choosing. As Torrance (1992:19, 20) argues, in “plastering upon the face
of Jesus a mask of different gentile features,” we prevent ourselves from
seeing and understanding him as who he really is as a Jew, while preventing the
Jews from recognising their own Messiah.
For
Torrance, the biblical modes of thought have a “sacrosanctity” because they
represent the way God’s revelation has taken shape within the human mind. Apart
from the mediation of revelation in Israel, no one could have understood the incarnation
and atonement of the Son of God. Hence, to detach Jesus Christ from the
mediation of revelation in Old Testament Israel is a “fatal mistake,” Torrance
argues, for it is still necessary to be “schooled in Israel” and “disciplined
through the Old Testament revelation” in order to apprehend the mediation of
revelation of God in Christ (Torrance, 1956:319; 1992:23). As Torrance
(2008:44) reminds us, all this is summed up in Jesus’ words to the Samaritan
woman at the well: “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know,
for salvation is of the Jews” (Jn 4:22). For Torrance, as Scandrett (2006:37) rightly
argues, “Israel and Jesus stand in inextricable relationship to one another.” As
Colyer (2001a:66) succinctly and rightly notes, only as we appropriate the prehistory
of the mediation of revelation in Israel are we able to understand Jesus Christ.
Next post: Prehistory of the mediation of reconciliation in Israel
References (see previous posts on this subject)
