A look at the theology of sex and its place in scriptures:
A Biblical Theology of the Sexual Metaphor
The overriding social issue of humanity is sexuality. Sex defines us in differences, whether male or female, celibate or active, chaste or promiscuous. Sex is either demonized to the nth degree or seen as the ultimate fulfillment of human existence. Demonstrations of sex, for good or ill, are vehemently abhorred and hungrily absorbed by the masses. A paradox befitting Biblical proportions arises out of the joining of the human flesh as the greatest sense of ecstasy and the greatest source of the taboo finds its place in one act. Yet despite the importance of this act to the human experience it has been all too often excluded from corpus of theological thought on God. Stanley Grenz makes this point saying, “[C]lassically-minded Christian thinkers generally thunder a resounding “NO!” to any attempt to link God and sexuality.”[1]
Rather than this classical take on sexuality, the sexual act is the great metaphor of Scripture. That union between male and female is the sign of the relationship, when it is made right, between the beloved whole of Man and the lover who is God. This very much theatrical metaphor, so crucial to a deeper knowledge of God, is displayed in four acts throughout the scriptures. These four acts are the Planting, the Cultivation, the Flowering, and the Harvest. In the Planting there is a giving of the act, setting it down its course. In the Cultivation there is the nurturing of the act, keeping its course and extolling its worth. In the Flowering there is the revelation of its beauty, showing the deep meaning it has always held. In the Harvest there is the culmination of its work, the preparation for the perfect union.
The first act, the Planting of the sexual metaphor takes place in Genesis 1: 27-28; 2:24. It is here that God creates Man, and does so in His image, as sexual beings, male and female. Here is given the first image of the act of sex in the blessing of this pairing. God tells them, “Be fruitful and increase in number”[2] Following the blessing, the Biblical narrative more explicitly lays out this union within the bounds of marriage. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”[3] Here at this beginning mankind’s sexuality is set down. As Mathews says, “Being human means being a sexual person. Human sexuality and sexual bonding between husband and wife are deemed “very good” (1:31) by God and are to be honored as the divine ordinance for men and women.”[4] In contrast to this, Gordon Wenham in his commentary sees only a twofold meaning to this issue, “[P]ositively, it is for the procreation of children; negatively, it is the rejection of the ancient oriental fertility cults”[5] Further, his focus on Gen. 2: 24 is to say that “just as blood relations are one’s flesh and bone, so marriage creates a similar kinship relation between man and wife,”[6] shying away from the aspect of sexuality and focusing on legality. Matthews, speaking on this same verse says, “Our human sexuality expresses both our individuality as gender and our oneness with another person through physical union.”[7] Following Matthew’s commentary, the force of the text indicates something more than just procreation or legal stipulation. God made sexuality, not just reproduction, so humans would be sexual. Experience would lend itself to that idea, but experience alone cannot be our guide. The text, in bringing up the one flesh union and God’s earlier commendation of it claiming that it “is very good”[8] shows that more is involved than just simple breeding or legalities, as J. M. Sprinkle asserts,
Procreation is viewed positively in the creation account as part of God’s blessing to humankind (Gen 1:28), so that the world, including sexuality, is pronounced “very good” (Gen 1:31). Only Eve through childbearing (Gen 3:16, 20) could “help” (Gen 2:18, 20) Adam fulfill the divine commission to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Moreover, marriage is a cure for loneliness (Gen 2:18) irrespective of whether children ensue. Woman, coming from man’s rib/side (Gen 2:21), was made for man of the same bone and flesh as man (Gen2:23), shares the divine image with man (Gen 1:27) and in marital union substantially restores the primordial “oneness” with him (Gen 2:24).[9]
The full purpose of that sexuality was not yet known at the beginning, but already a grander scheme was being framed
The second act, the Cultivation, takes place through the guidance of Law and the book of Proverbs up to the culmination of its beauty in the erotic imagery of the Song of Songs. In the books of the law God lays down through His prophet Moses the regulations of sexual conduct. J. M. Sprinkle explains the Law’s stance on sexuality saying, “The Pentateuch sees sexuality as a good thing when lawfully expressed but destructive if uncontrolled.”[10] Sex is to be pure, according to the Law. This forbids acts of sexuality that deviate from the example given through the marital relationship between Adam and Eve, or acts that violate a pre-existing blood relation. Through the proverbs, God gives us the wisdom behind these laws saying:
Drink water from your own cistern and running water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed outside, your streams of water in the wide plazas? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in your young wife – a loving doe, a graceful deer; may her breasts satisfy you at all times, may you be captivated by her love always. But why should you be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, and embrace the bosom of a different woman? For the ways of a person are in front of the LORD’s eyes, and the LORD weighs all that person’s paths.[11]
Through the Song of Songs God shows the beauty of this love and sexual union when exercised as planned. According to the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, “The world of the Song is a world of heightened emotions. Its genius is that it enables us to view the world as experienced by people intoxicated by love. The imagery of the Song is pastoral, passionate, erotic, sensuous, hyperbolic, metaphoric, and affective.”[12] This Song shows us the erotic depth of the relationship between the beloved and the lover, a shadow of that heavenly courtship between God and Man.
The third act, the Flowering, takes place in Ephesians 5: 22-32, 1 Corinthians 6: 15-17 and 2 Corinthians 11:2, as Paul shows how the act of marriage and the sexual life is a portrayal of the relationship between the Church and Jesus. Glimpses of this were shown in the Old Testament in the many images of God seeking after the rebellious Israel as a man seeking after his adulterous wife, but this view was always looking for the future when God’s beloved would return to Him. With the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the imparting of the Holy Spirit the chase is over. The beloved is no longer running from her lover but is in preparation for the final culmination of their relationship. It is in this context that Paul, through the Holy Spirit, reveals the beauty of God’s sexual plan saying, “Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body. For it is said, ‘the two shall become one flesh.’ But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit”[13] Eduard Schweizer comments on this passage saying,
[T]he association between Christ and the believer is regarded as just as close and physical as that between the two partners in the sex act, so that Paul can regard the body of the believer as a member of Christ, just as in sex a man become the member of a harlot (6:15f.) because in it he is one body with her.[14]
The followers of God, as embodied in the Church, are finally revealed corporately as the beloved of the Christ by Paul, “I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.”[15] The sexual metaphor, while not yet described in the fullness it will bear, is made clearer. Paul speaks further on this metaphor saying:
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church- for we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery- but I am talking about Christ and the church.[16]
Commenting on this verse D. F. Wright says:
[N]ot only is [marital sex] quite compatible with spiritual union with the Lord (1 Cor 6:17), but also it expresses the mysterion (“mystery’) of the union between Christ and his church (Eph 5:31-32; 2 Cor 11:2). The analogy covers not merely reciprocal mutual love, respect and care but the union itself. A couple’s becoming “one flesh,” which entails sexual congress whatever else it may entail, is comparable to the bonding between Christ and believers. They become members, limbs, of his body, just as a husband loving his wife loves his own body, his own self (Eph 5:28-30)[17]
The profound mystery is of the relationship between Christ and the Church which is reflected in the sexual metaphor of marriage. The physical union between man and wife is a picture of that heavenly eschatological union between Christ and the Church, God and Man.
The fourth act, the Harvest, takes place in Revelations 19:17. This is the final culmination of the sexual metaphor, the wonderful union of God and His Bride. Here is the fulfillment of redemption history. God’s perfect union with Man will be restored. Christ is to be wed to His bride. John gives us a glimpse of this fulfillment in writing, saying, “For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.”[18] The bride is ready and the culmination of redemptive history is near at hand. On this verse Alan Johnson says, “The bride is the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, which is a symbol of the church, the bride of Christ, the community of those redeemed by Christ’s blood.”[19] Further, Johnson says, “The time of betrothal has ended. Now it is the time for the church, prepared by loyalty and suffering, to enter into her full experience of salvation and glory with her beloved spouse, Christ.”[20] Here the sexual metaphor of man cleaving to his wife is shown to reflect the salvific cleaving of Christ to the Church. The bride of Christ is redeemed and the sexual metaphor given in the beginning finds its fulfillment.
Sex has been with us, a part of us, since the beginning. In all that time, every right sexual act has been yet another reflection of God’s love for, and desire for union with, His beloved. Sex is to be enjoyed in expectation of that eschatological truth, the truth of complete union with God. In the first act of this sexual drama God planted the sexual metaphor for Man to see and enjoy and to show Man the depth of His love. In the second act, after the fall, God cultivated this sexual metaphor through laws and proverbs while extolling its beauty in song. In the third act God allowed the sexual metaphor to flower, showing its depths and beauty in the relationship between the newly founded Church and His Son. In the fourth act the sexual metaphor will finally be made ready for harvest as the cosmic romance reaches its climax with the wedding feast of the Lamb. A fifth eternal act proceeds from this feast as the rapturous bliss of union, so weakly foreshadowed in the sexual climax of Man, is finally made complete in the eternal state for which we have no words to describe with any justice. So will be the ultimate climax. The sexual metaphor will no longer be metaphor.
[1] Stanley J. Grenz “Is God Sexual? Human Embodiment of the Christian Conception of God” Christian Scholar’s Review 28:1 (1998) 24: 24-41
[2] Genesis 1:28
[3] Genesis 2:24
[4] Kenneth A. Matthews Genesis 1-11:26 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 173
[5] Gordon J. Wenham Genesis 1-15 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987), 33
[6] Wenham, Genesis, 71
[7] Matthews, Genesis, 223
[8] Genesis 1: 31
[9] J. M. Sprinkle “Sexuality, Sexual Ethics” in Dictionary of the Old Testament Pentateuch Ed. T. Desmon Alexander and David W. Baker (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003) 742 [741-753]
[10] J. M. Sprinkle, “Sexuality,” 751
[11] Proverbs 5:15-21
[12] Ed. Leland Ryken Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993) 807
[13] 1 Corinthians 6:15-16
[14] Eduard Schweizer and F. Baumgartel, “swma ktl” TDNT VII. 1065 [1024-94]
[15] 2 Corinthian 11:2
[16] Ephesians 5: 29-32
[17] D. F. Wright “Sexuality, Sexual Ethics” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters Ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, et al (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993) : 872 [871-875]
[18] Revelations 19: 7-8
[19] Alan F. Johnson Revelation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006) 755
[20] Johnson, Revelation, 755
Monday, November 17, 2008
Update One
Just a little critique of a provacative view on Prophecy and the Christian life:
Critique of “Historical Contingencies and Biblical Predictions”
Richard Pratt, in his essay “Historical Contingencies and Biblical Predictions”[1], challenges the “wide spread hermeneutical orientation”[2] held by many evangelicals which reads the predictions and prophecies of old testament prophets as absolute deterministic depictions of future events. This goal being given at the outset of the essay sets up his argument as though it will be a blatant attack against some of the foundational beliefs of the evangelical portion of the Church, namely beliefs in the omniscience and omnipotence of God and the infallibility of His written Word. However, instead of rashly attacking these beliefs, Pratt gently and graciously goes through a short explanation of the history behind the theology of Biblical prophecies. He continues to set up his argument on this historical basis, looking at the theologies professed by historically significant people and confessions such as Calvin and the Westminster Confession. Through these historical points Pratt sets up in his argument the immutability and providence of God, two things no evangelical would deny. Within this tension between these two aspects of God, those aspects being a God who does not change yet a God who acts ceaselessly, Pratt places his belief that “God’s immutability does not negate the importance of historical contingencies or especially the importance of human choice.”[3] Breaking from traditional teaching by evangelicals on prophecies, Pratt declares,
Old Testament prophets revealed the word of the unchanging Yahweh, but they spoke for God in space and time, not before the foundations of the world. By definition, therefore, they did not utter immutable decrees but providential declarations.[4] From this Pratt closes his initial argument by concluding that historical contingencies do have significant effect on the outcomes of prophecy.
To back up his argument, Pratt continues his essay by analyzing the different forms that prophecies take. While placating evangelical readers enough to continue reading with his historical analyses, the meat of his argument lays within this larger segment of his essay. Upon embarking on this study, Pratt lays out a general overview of Biblical predictions broken into three categories. These categories are predictions qualified by conditions, predictions qualified by assurances, and predictions without qualifications. The first set of predictions Pratt describes as those predictions that include a necessary action required of the hearer for the prediction to be fulfilled. These predictions can be bipolar or unipolar, either describing a path leading to blessing or describing two paths, one leading to blessing and one leading to cursing. From the unipolar predictions Pratt pulls out an important feature for his argument, that not all contingencies are described. In these instances the “OT prophets did not state every applicable condition to their predictions,”[5] therefore, according to Pratt, “considering unexpressed conditions is vital to a proper interpretation of prophecy.”[6]
The second set of predictions are those predictions that God makes clear will undoubtedly come to pass. As in the example from Jeremiah 11, at some points God would have prophet even forbid prayer against coming wrath because it was so certain a thing. At other points God expressly clearly through the prophets that His intentions “will not be reversed”[7] Crucial to these predictions are the phrases I will not turn back and I will not repent. The other way that God gives an assurance through the prophets is through Him taking oaths. To the delight of evangelicals Pratt summarizes this section by showing there are indeed predicted events that are inevitable. However, he continues to extrapolate from this that this means, contrary to popular evangelical thought, prophecies not particularly assured in fact are not assured. At least they are not assured in the sense of a deterministic future.
This leads to the third set of predictions, those without a word of assurance. These are the prophecies in which God did not give qualifications or directed assurances beyond the prophet’s word. According to Pratt, “we may say without hesitation that intervening historical contingencies had some bearing on this class of predictions.”[8] Indeed, Pratt brings up several Biblical examples to support this fact. These are the strongest arguments for his view directly coming out of Scripture. But opposed to these passages and presented directly after them in his essay is the Mosaic criteria for a true Prophet, that what they say must occur. His defense in this section amounts to the weakest point in his argument. While there are several examples where this criterion is not followed through in Scripture, Pratt’s only explanation of the criteria is that the people in Moses’ time would not have read the criteria as it is written and now read by us. According to Pratt, the people would have expected this criterion to take into account contingencies that flow from the covenantal promises of God. This seems to be making large assumption of the earlier readers of the text. To his credit, Pratt does not go from here to lead a brash attack against the complex answers evangelicals have constructed. Instead, using more Biblical examples he shows the flaws in the evangelical view without resorting to outright confrontation, except perhaps with his cry for “lack of argumentation”.[9]
In the final section pre-conclusion of Pratt’s essay, Pratt gives his greatest argument for his position. More than an argument, what he gives a picture of beauty in the weaving together of history by God through His solemn covenants. Instead of viewing the prophets as men speaking out condemnation and blessing somewhat randomly at whatever nearby nations that were in trouble, Pratt pictures them as covenant declarers speaking out the unchangeable covenants God set forth through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Therefore, when the prophets speak, it is not from vacuum or a sense of wrongdoing, but it is speaking the covenant to people. If the people would listen, God would turn away the promised wrath. This view explains well the times when prophecy is not fulfilled in scripture, such as with Jonah and Nineveh. Pratt is careful, however, to preserve the providence of God showing that God does not always relent, as in the case of David’s first son by Bathsheba. God is the decider of what will happen. This does add uncertainty into prophecy, as only God knows what He will do, but by focusing on the covenantal promises “the original recipients of OT predictions could be confident that Yahweh would fulfill His covenant promises.”[10]
To conclude, Pratt calls for evangelicals to have a hermeneutical shift away from debates over complex eschatological schemes based on deterministic prediction towards a humbling view of a future that is truly affected by our actions. Pratt calls us to stop fitting current events into the prophetic scheme of God but to live with the prophecies in mind that we live not in view of “foreknowledge of the future”[11] but the “formation of the future.”[12] Pratt has made a convincing, though not perfect, argument for this view of prophecy. With it he reveals much beauty within the work of God in the world. While there are some points that he seems to inadequately argue for, he opens a new view on a topic more than worth discussing.
[1] Richard L. Pratt Jr., “Historical Contingencies and Biblical Predictions” in The Way of Wisdom, ed. J.I Packer and Sven K. Soderlund (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000): 180-203
[2] Ibid 180
[3] Ibid 183
[4] Ibid 183
[5] Ibid 185
[6] Ibid 185
[7] Ibid 186
[8] Ibid 188
[9] Ibid 190
[10] Ibid 195
[11] Ibid 196
[12] Ibid 196
Critique of “Historical Contingencies and Biblical Predictions”
Richard Pratt, in his essay “Historical Contingencies and Biblical Predictions”[1], challenges the “wide spread hermeneutical orientation”[2] held by many evangelicals which reads the predictions and prophecies of old testament prophets as absolute deterministic depictions of future events. This goal being given at the outset of the essay sets up his argument as though it will be a blatant attack against some of the foundational beliefs of the evangelical portion of the Church, namely beliefs in the omniscience and omnipotence of God and the infallibility of His written Word. However, instead of rashly attacking these beliefs, Pratt gently and graciously goes through a short explanation of the history behind the theology of Biblical prophecies. He continues to set up his argument on this historical basis, looking at the theologies professed by historically significant people and confessions such as Calvin and the Westminster Confession. Through these historical points Pratt sets up in his argument the immutability and providence of God, two things no evangelical would deny. Within this tension between these two aspects of God, those aspects being a God who does not change yet a God who acts ceaselessly, Pratt places his belief that “God’s immutability does not negate the importance of historical contingencies or especially the importance of human choice.”[3] Breaking from traditional teaching by evangelicals on prophecies, Pratt declares,
Old Testament prophets revealed the word of the unchanging Yahweh, but they spoke for God in space and time, not before the foundations of the world. By definition, therefore, they did not utter immutable decrees but providential declarations.[4] From this Pratt closes his initial argument by concluding that historical contingencies do have significant effect on the outcomes of prophecy.
To back up his argument, Pratt continues his essay by analyzing the different forms that prophecies take. While placating evangelical readers enough to continue reading with his historical analyses, the meat of his argument lays within this larger segment of his essay. Upon embarking on this study, Pratt lays out a general overview of Biblical predictions broken into three categories. These categories are predictions qualified by conditions, predictions qualified by assurances, and predictions without qualifications. The first set of predictions Pratt describes as those predictions that include a necessary action required of the hearer for the prediction to be fulfilled. These predictions can be bipolar or unipolar, either describing a path leading to blessing or describing two paths, one leading to blessing and one leading to cursing. From the unipolar predictions Pratt pulls out an important feature for his argument, that not all contingencies are described. In these instances the “OT prophets did not state every applicable condition to their predictions,”[5] therefore, according to Pratt, “considering unexpressed conditions is vital to a proper interpretation of prophecy.”[6]
The second set of predictions are those predictions that God makes clear will undoubtedly come to pass. As in the example from Jeremiah 11, at some points God would have prophet even forbid prayer against coming wrath because it was so certain a thing. At other points God expressly clearly through the prophets that His intentions “will not be reversed”[7] Crucial to these predictions are the phrases I will not turn back and I will not repent. The other way that God gives an assurance through the prophets is through Him taking oaths. To the delight of evangelicals Pratt summarizes this section by showing there are indeed predicted events that are inevitable. However, he continues to extrapolate from this that this means, contrary to popular evangelical thought, prophecies not particularly assured in fact are not assured. At least they are not assured in the sense of a deterministic future.
This leads to the third set of predictions, those without a word of assurance. These are the prophecies in which God did not give qualifications or directed assurances beyond the prophet’s word. According to Pratt, “we may say without hesitation that intervening historical contingencies had some bearing on this class of predictions.”[8] Indeed, Pratt brings up several Biblical examples to support this fact. These are the strongest arguments for his view directly coming out of Scripture. But opposed to these passages and presented directly after them in his essay is the Mosaic criteria for a true Prophet, that what they say must occur. His defense in this section amounts to the weakest point in his argument. While there are several examples where this criterion is not followed through in Scripture, Pratt’s only explanation of the criteria is that the people in Moses’ time would not have read the criteria as it is written and now read by us. According to Pratt, the people would have expected this criterion to take into account contingencies that flow from the covenantal promises of God. This seems to be making large assumption of the earlier readers of the text. To his credit, Pratt does not go from here to lead a brash attack against the complex answers evangelicals have constructed. Instead, using more Biblical examples he shows the flaws in the evangelical view without resorting to outright confrontation, except perhaps with his cry for “lack of argumentation”.[9]
In the final section pre-conclusion of Pratt’s essay, Pratt gives his greatest argument for his position. More than an argument, what he gives a picture of beauty in the weaving together of history by God through His solemn covenants. Instead of viewing the prophets as men speaking out condemnation and blessing somewhat randomly at whatever nearby nations that were in trouble, Pratt pictures them as covenant declarers speaking out the unchangeable covenants God set forth through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Therefore, when the prophets speak, it is not from vacuum or a sense of wrongdoing, but it is speaking the covenant to people. If the people would listen, God would turn away the promised wrath. This view explains well the times when prophecy is not fulfilled in scripture, such as with Jonah and Nineveh. Pratt is careful, however, to preserve the providence of God showing that God does not always relent, as in the case of David’s first son by Bathsheba. God is the decider of what will happen. This does add uncertainty into prophecy, as only God knows what He will do, but by focusing on the covenantal promises “the original recipients of OT predictions could be confident that Yahweh would fulfill His covenant promises.”[10]
To conclude, Pratt calls for evangelicals to have a hermeneutical shift away from debates over complex eschatological schemes based on deterministic prediction towards a humbling view of a future that is truly affected by our actions. Pratt calls us to stop fitting current events into the prophetic scheme of God but to live with the prophecies in mind that we live not in view of “foreknowledge of the future”[11] but the “formation of the future.”[12] Pratt has made a convincing, though not perfect, argument for this view of prophecy. With it he reveals much beauty within the work of God in the world. While there are some points that he seems to inadequately argue for, he opens a new view on a topic more than worth discussing.
[1] Richard L. Pratt Jr., “Historical Contingencies and Biblical Predictions” in The Way of Wisdom, ed. J.I Packer and Sven K. Soderlund (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000): 180-203
[2] Ibid 180
[3] Ibid 183
[4] Ibid 183
[5] Ibid 185
[6] Ibid 185
[7] Ibid 186
[8] Ibid 188
[9] Ibid 190
[10] Ibid 195
[11] Ibid 196
[12] Ibid 196
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
