Vessels of Wrath, Volume 2: The Witness of the New Testament to Divine Reprobating Activity

By Richard M. Blaylock

Hardening hearts. Blinding eyes. Sending deceitful spirits. Crafting vessels of wrath. Few will deny that certain biblical passages make claims about God that are difficult to accept. But perhaps the most troubling are the verses that describe God as influencing individuals or groups towards wicked behavior for the purpose of condemning them. What are readers to do with these texts? In Vessels of Wrath, Richard M. Blaylock tackles the thorny subject of divine reprobating activity (DRA). Through an exhaustive, biblical-theological study of the Christian canon's witness, Blaylock argues that the Bible does not present DRA as an insignificant or monolithic concept; instead, the biblical authors showcase both the significance and the complexity of DRA in a variety of ways. The book aims to help readers of the Bible to wrestle with the Scriptures so that they might come to better understand its testimony to this mysterious and awesome divine activity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Aug 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666763157

Richard M. Blaylock

Richard M. Blaylock is assistant professor of biblical studies at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon.

Book preview

Vessels of Wrath

Volume 2. The Witness of the New Testament to Divine Reprobating Activity

Richard M. Blaylock

Foreword by Thomas R. Schreiner

Vessels of Wrath

Volume 2. The Witness of the New Testament to Divine Reprobating Activity

Copyright © 2023 Richard M. Blaylock. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Pickwick Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

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Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-6313-3

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-6314-0

ebook isbn: 978-1-6667-6315-7

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Blaylock, Richard M. [author]. | Schreiner, Thomas R. [foreword]

Title: Vessels of wrath : volume 2. the witness of the New Testament to divine reprobating activity / by Richard M. Blaylock ; with a foreword by Thomas R. Schreiner.

Description: Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2023 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-6667-6313-3 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-6667-6314-0 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-6667-6315-7 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: LCSH: Punishment—Biblical teaching. | Judgment of God. | Providence and government of God. | Bible—New Testament—Theology. | Bible—Theology. | Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Classification: BT180 B53 2023 (paperback) | BT180 (ebook)

11/14/22

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Divine Reprobating Activity in the Synoptics and Acts

Chapter 3: Divine Reprobating Activity in the Letters of the New Testament

Chapter 4: Divine Reprobating Activity in the Johannine Corpus

Chapter 5: Conclusion

Appendix

Bibliography

For my dear Ellie Hope,

May you come to know the LORD as your God and as the fountain of lasting hope (Exod 15:2; Rom 15:13).

Foreword

As I have gotten older it has often struck me that many of the most important doctrines of the Christian faith are ultimately mysterious. We must be careful, of course, not to appeal to mystery too quickly. We may identify a doctrine as a mystery when the Scriptures actually lead us farther on the path to truth than we have traveled. Thus, we must put mystery at the right place in accord with divine revelation. Still, virtually all Christians agree that there are doctrines that exceed our finite understanding. They are not contradictory or irrational, but they surpass our ability to explain every feature of their teaching. For instance, the doctrine of the Trinity teaches that there is one God, and yet there is complexity in the divine being in that there are three persons. Theologians throughout history have written many excellent treatises on the Trinity, and perhaps the essay by Augustine on the Trinity outshines them all. We can go higher and deeper than many of us imagine in reflecting on the Trinity. Still, at the end of the day we have to admit that we can’t fully explain how God is both one and three. We can say the same thing about the person of Christ. The orthodox teaching enshrined at Chalcedon is that Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is one person with two natures—both a divine and a human nature. Once again, fuller study as we press into this matter gives us greater precision and understanding of this amazing doctrine. And yet we are again faced with a matter that surpasses our comprehension.

The interaction between our bodies and souls is also mysterious. Some have tried to solve the mystery by becoming materialists, by denying the reality of the human soul. Still, the orthodox position is that human beings are body and soul, and that interpretation is rooted in the Scriptures themselves. And yet we are hard pressed to explain clearly how the body and the soul relate and interact with one another. We know that they do interact, but the nature and character of their relationship is beyond our ken.

I would submit the same is true of divine sovereignty and human freedom and responsibility. The Scriptures teach both that God is fully sovereign and that human choices are authentic and real and no charade. God doesn’t force us to act against our wills. We are not puppets on a string. One way of illustrating God’s sovereignty and the authenticity of human choices is in terms of God as the author of all of reality. God is the author of the novel called human history. As the author he determines all that happens, and yet the characters in the novel make real decisions. Such an illustration doesn’t answer every question, and we should not expect that it would since we are encountering another mystery—the mystery of divine providence and human choices. Some have tried to cut the cord of the mystery through a determinism that denies the reality of human freedom, concluding that human freedom and dignity are a charade. Others have tried to solve the dilemma by limiting divine sovereignty so that human choices instead of the divine will determine the outcome of human lives. The Scriptures, however, never compromise divine sovereignty and rule over the world in this way. Instead, they teach that God is absolutely sovereign over all things and that human beings are responsible for their decisions and actions. I was talking to a student about these things on one occasion, and he gave me an impassioned speech about how mystery didn’t bother him relative to the Trinity or the two natures of Christ, but the mystery about divine sovereignty and human freedom couldn’t be true because it was psychologically disorienting. But we don’t choose our mysteries based on whether they are personally satisfying or comforting. We should not be surprised that there are number of features of divine revelation that surpass our intellectual capacities. We are talking about God, after all, the creator and sovereign of the universe. We are walking in the forest of his infinite knowledge, and what he has revealed to us is true, but we are not given exhaustive knowledge. We know truly but not fully.

All of this brings me to Richard Blaylock’s book on divine reprobating activity. Here is a theme that is often rejected and even more rarely studied and examined. But Blaylock shows that the theme is woven throughout the Scriptures, and he also carefully analyzes from a biblical-theological standpoint the nuances of the theme. For instance, divine reprobating activity doesn’t always have to do with people’s eternal destiny but in many cases relates to temporal judgments. We find here careful exegesis and in-depth research, showing that divine reprobating activity is part of the biblical witness. Some might be tempted to conclude that such a view cancels out the authenticity of human choices, but the Scriptures clearly affirm God’s exhaustive sovereignty and the reality and authenticity of human decisions. Blaylock reminds us that the Lord reigns over all of life, past, present, and future, and that even evil is ultimately under his sovereign rule.

Thomas R. Schreiner

Preface

Anyone who has read the Bible knows that it contains many passages that are difficult to accept. Throughout history, many Christians and non-Christians have been disturbed by the Bible’s depictions of divine violence and wrath. In recent years, many have been perturbed by texts that affirm role distinctions between men and women, or by passages that condemn homosexual behavior. And in all likelihood, the Bible will continue to unsettle future generations, perhaps in ways that today’s readers might not be able to anticipate.

Yet, despite its provocations, the Bible continues to be among the world’s most studied books. In fact, a significant subset of its readers (myself included) are committed to believing and obeying all that they understand the Scriptures to teach––including those passages that cause the most discomfort. But even among those who do not consider the Bible to be God’s inspired Word, there continues to be a strong interest in deciphering the Bible’s meaning. Thus, for a vast number of people of varied religious commitments, understanding the Bible on its own terms––even when it is at its most disconcerting––continues to be a worthwhile endeavor.

This present work is an exercise in understanding the Bible on its own terms. Specifically, Vessels of Wrath represents my attempt to investigate the biblical concept of Divine Reprobating Activity (DRA), which refers to that form of divine agency by which God influences individuals or groups towards wicked behavior for the purpose of condemning them. In this two-volume project, I have made it my goal to analyze the diverse presentations of DRA within the biblical materials while also aiming at a synthesis of the Bible’s teaching on this subject. In other words, this project represents my best efforts at grappling with what the Bible has to say about the topic of DRA, both in its diverse parts and as a unified whole.

Some might wonder why anyone would determine to study such a dreadful subject as DRA. In my case, I certainly did not choose to focus on DRA out of a desire to be controversial or provocative. Instead, my intention in exploring this theme has been to shed some light on a biblical concept that is understandably troubling. In my interactions with the relevant biblical passages, I have sought to avoid the temptations of sensationalizing or softening the biblical witness; instead, I have attempted to soberly explain what these texts mean, and to then synthesize and summarize the biblical testimony. Given the scope of the work, it is inevitable that readers will disagree with some of my conclusions. Nevertheless, it is my hope that all who read this book will be helped to further understand, and perhaps even appreciate, what the Bible has to say about this profoundly difficult subject.

The following two-volume work is a slight revision of my PhD dissertation, which was accepted by the faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the fall of 2021. The most important difference between the two is that the dissertation includes a chapter dedicated to surveying scholarship on five topics related to the subject of divine reprobating activity (namely, divine hardening, predestination, election, divine and human agency, and the ninth chapter of Romans). In that chapter, I attempt to demonstrate that few (if any) prior works in biblical and systematic theology have devoted sustained attention to the theme of DRA. Additionally, my survey of literature also shows that Christians throughout church history have affirmed both retributive and non-retributive forms of DRA. For the sake of space, these conclusions are assumed rather than argued for in this present book.

Acknowledgments

I owe a deep debt of gratitude to many individuals who encouraged, counseled, and otherwise aided me in the writing of this project. First of all, I am thankful for my peers in the doctoral program at Southern Seminary who supported me through the dissertation phase of my studies. I would especially like to thank Jarrett Ford, Andrés Vera, Paul Lamicela, Coye Still, Hyogil Kong, Jim Dernell, Jones Ndzi, David Christensen, Roberto Carrerra, and John Baker. It was a joy to have gone through the PhD program with men whose friendship, scholarship, and love for the Lord served (and continue to serve) as sources of deep encouragement and edification.

In addition to friends from the PhD program, I also am thankful for Jono and Camilla Burlini, Mike and Emily Lambelet, Kenny and Joy Oliver, Seth Osbourne, Adam and Aly Jacobs, Ryan and Laura Patty, Doug and Katie Renfro, Shawn Wright, Tommy Nissen, Keith Percic, Sam Brindley, Zach Hunn, and Heath Burns. Not only did these men and women refresh my soul numerous times with their friendship, but they also prayed for me as I worked on the dissertation; indeed, I have no doubt that this work would not have seen the light of day had they not done so. In addition, I would like to thank Mon, Trina, Marco, Nic, Ito, Franco, Mara, Yosu, and Nica. Though separated by time and space, they are and always will be in my heart.

I must also express my deepest appreciation for Tom and Diane Schreiner. Tom served as my supervisor for my seven years in the doctoral program. During that time, he not only provided me with expert guidance and a godly model of scholarship, but Tom and Diane also welcomed my family into their home and blessed us with their friendship. We have nothing but the deepest admiration and fondness for the Schreiners, without whom this project would have also never been completed.

I would also like to thank my graduate fellows, Aaron Mattox and Kohl Hanson, for all the assistance they provided on this project. Aaron and Kohl proofread the manuscripts and assisted me with the indexes. In so doing, they substantially improved the book and also saved me a lot of time.

I am thankful for Tetsuya Nomura, Naoki Hamaguchi, Motomu Toriyama, Yoshinori Kitase, Masashi Hamauzu, Mitsuto Suzuki, and of course, Nobuo Uematsu. Their work was—and has remained—a source of great delight that often lifted my spirits in the midst of the doldrums of the writing process.

I am unspeakably grateful for the love of my family. My thanks go out to my parents, George and Candy Blaylock, who supported me financially through my studies and who likewise kept me in their prayers. I would also like to express my appreciation and love for my dear daughters: Addi and Ellie, I hope you will always know that you are your father’s delight. And I pray that one day soon, you too will choose to love, trust, and worship the one true, living, and sovereign God. And Caitlin, life with you is a joy that is truly hard to describe. I can never say it enough, but thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Finally, my deepest and most profound thanks are reserved for the triune God who set his love upon me before the creation of the world. All the kindnesses that I have experienced in this life are expressions of his love—a love so fierce that it paid the highest, most dreadful price possible to rescue this sinful nobody. Above my every hope for this book is the hope that God would be honored by it.

With gratitude,

Richard M. Blaylock

Abbreviations

BDAG Bauer, Walter, William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, and Frederick W. Danker. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979

BDB Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1994

HALOT Koehler, Ludwig, Walter Baumgartner, and Johann J. Stamm. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated and edited under the supervision of Mervyn E. J. Richardson. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–99

LSJ Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, and Henry Stuart Jones. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. with revised supplement. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996

1

Introduction

Taken at face value, the New Testament (NT) appears to contain passages that depict God deliberately influencing individuals and groups towards evil behavior for which said persons are subsequently punished.¹ A few (in)famous examples of this phenomenon include Mark’s explanation of the rationale behind Jesus’ choice to teach in parables (Mark 4:10–12), the Gospel of John’s account of Israel’s unbelief (John 12:37–41), and of course, Paul’s suggestion that certain people have been predestined to be vessels of wrath (Rom 9:19–22).² While one might assume that these are isolated instances or that, in each case, God is described as repaying sin with more sin, a thorough examination of the NT’s testimony to this phenomenon paints a different picture: rather than being a peripheral or uniform concept, the NT portrays this type of divine agency as both significant and multifarious.

Need for the Study

In this study, I refer to the form of divine influence described above as Divine Reprobating Activity (DRA). I define DRA as any exercise of divine agency intended to efficaciously influence responsible creatures towards behavior that merits divine condemnation, so that they do in fact experience God’s judgment. To my knowledge, there has been very little work done within the fields of NT theology or biblical theology (BT) that directly treats the subject of DRA. Admittedly, much ink has been spilt on issues related to DRA, especially from within the discipline of systematic theology (ST). In particular, theologians have been wrestling with the doctrines of predestination and reprobation for centuries.³ Because these concepts have been so thoroughly debated by systematic theologians throughout church history, it might be tempting to conclude that DRA requires no further investigation. However, I would argue that such a conclusion is premature and that the need to investigate this subject still exists for at least the following reasons. First, although the topics of predestination and reprobation have been the subject of numerous theological investigations, these are not substitutes for an analysis of DRA itself. While negative predestination may be described as a form of DRA, it cannot be said to be co-extensive with the concept. On the contrary, the Scriptures include many examples wherein God’s negative influence is posited without any reference to eternal condemnation. For those interested in understanding the Bible on its own terms, each of these passages merits careful, exegetical investigation, which is not always present in works focused primarily on the doctrine of predestination. Thus, the existing treatises on predestination do not meet the need for a thorough study of the broader phenomenon that is DRA. Second, I would argue that a focus on the doctrine of predestination has often led theologians to flatten the Scriptures and to overlook the different nuances that may distinguish one biblical author’s perspective on DRA from another’s. In other words, the overarching concern to either validate or invalidate certain theological formulations regarding God’s decrees has at times led theologians to misrepresent the meaning of particular biblical passages or to overlook the complexity of the Scripture’s witness to DRA.⁴ Furthermore, these discussions have often been guided more by philosophical/logical argumentation than by the commitment to understand what each biblical author intended to say about the subject of God’s negative influence. For these reasons, the existing theological treatments of predestination do not meet the need for a biblical-theological analysis of DRA-texts in the NT. Finally, as already mentioned, I am unaware of works within the field of NT theology that provide an exhaustive, detailed investigation of the subject of DRA in the NT.⁵ In addition, the NT scholars who have interacted with DRA to some degree have tended to treat this divine activity as though it were one-dimensional and have often denied or minimized the existence of its more distasteful strands for less than convincing reasons. Because I do not know of any existing studies that have attempted (1) to specifically examine the phenomenon of DRA throughout the NT, (2) to account for the different presentations of this activity by the biblical authors, and (3) to adopt a biblical-theological approach to the issue, I am persuaded that such a study would be a useful contribution to the field of NT theology and to the field of BT as a whole.

Aims and Thesis

This book is the second of two volumes that together aim to provide a thorough, biblical-theological study of DRA within the Christian canon. As already mentioned, I define DRA as any exercise of divine agency intended to efficaciously influence responsible creatures towards behavior that merits divine condemnation, so that they do in fact experience God’s judgment. In this volume, I will argue that the NT does not present DRA as an insignificant or monolithic concept; instead, its authors showcase both the significance and complexity of DRA in a variety of ways. In order to prove this thesis, I will demonstrate (1) that the NT provides multivalent descriptions of DRA so that specific examples of this divine activity can be classified as retributive or non-retributive,⁶ mediated or immediate,⁷ passive or active,⁸ non-eternal or eternal,⁹ and (2) that the NT attests to the significance of DRA by referring to the concept repeatedly across numerous books and genres, by integrally associating DRA with the outworking of salvation history and the fulfillment of the Scriptures, by presenting DRA as a crucial means through which God’s character is revealed, and by granting DRA a place in its presentation of personal eschatology.¹⁰

Methodology

This volume is intended to be a thorough, biblical-theological study of a particular kind of divine agency attested throughout the NT. However, the nature of the project raises certain questions. First, what methods will be employed to determine which texts to include within the scope of the study? And second, given the debates surrounding the field of BT, what does it mean that the study attempts to be biblical-theological?

Scope of the Project

A few comments must be made regarding the scope of this study. To begin with, my interest in this second volume lies with the twenty-seven books of the NT. And because this project is meant to be a thorough, biblical-theological study, the attempt will be made to include every relevant passage from within this corpus. Given this goal, it will be important that the study includes all the DRA-texts from within the NT while also excluding all texts that may describe similar-but-distinct phenomena. But what criteria can be used to determine whether or not a NT passage actually describes DRA?

While some might argue for a lexical approach to the problem, it seems more appropriate to use the definition of DRA itself as a guide for determining which texts to include. Again, DRA can be defined as any exercise of divine agency intended to efficaciously influence responsible creatures towards behavior that merits divine condemnation, so that they might in fact experience God’s judgment. Thus, three criteria may be designated in order to decide whether or not DRA is attested in a text. Divine Reprobating Activity may be detected only when a biblical text states or suggests that: (1) in some form or fashion, God intentionally influences an agent or group of agents towards behavior considered by the biblical author to be sinful; (2) an agent or a group of agents engages (or will engage) in the sinful activity towards which they were divinely influenced; and (3) God punishes (or intends to punish) said agent(s) for engaging in the condemnable activities towards which they were divinely influenced.

In what follows, these three criteria will be used to identify cases of DRA and to prevent the inclusion of passages that do not bear direct witness to the concept. For example, these criteria would serve to exclude those texts that speak of God’s sovereignty over human sins without referring to condemnation.¹¹ Such passages may meet the first two criteria by describing God’s superintendence of human sins, but they fail to meet the third criteria since they do not claim that God’s influence was intended to lead to condemnation. In addition, these criteria also rule out passages that may be taken to logically entail DRA. So for instance, some have deduced the existence of reprobating influence from verses that describe divine election, predestination, and God’s sovereignty.¹² While such argumentation may be reasonable and theologically sound, it should not serve as the basis for a biblical-theological study of DRA since the explication of logical entailments goes beyond the tasks of the discipline as it is commonly understood. Thus, by using the three criteria outlined above, the scope of the study will effectively be limited to include only those NT passages that directly bear witness to DRA.

Finally, as the criteria to be employed already suggest, this project approaches DRA conceptually rather than lexically.¹³ In other words, a text’s relevance to this study will not be determined on the basis of the presence or absence of particular word groups. While lexical studies have their value, a word-study approach would be inappropriate for the purposes of this project since there is no reason to believe that the NT authors used a limited set of terms to refer to God’s reprobating influence. Thus, any attempt to trace DRA by conducting a series of word studies inevitably risks excluding data pertinent to the analysis of DRA¹⁴ while also increasing the likelihood of including texts that describe related phenomena without actually depicting DRA.¹⁵

Biblical-Theological Method

In addition to delineating the scope of the project, what is meant by a biblical-theological study must also be unpacked. As is well known, the term biblical theology is not one that has a universal meaning.¹⁶ Nevertheless, my investigation of DRA fits within the particular stream of scholarship that understands BT to be (1) exegetical, (2) inductive, (3) canonical, (4) conscious of inner-biblical exegesis, and (5) a bridge-discipline between exegesis and ST.¹⁷

Exegetical Rigor

In keeping with Gabler’s original proposal,¹⁸ many scholars agree that biblical theology must maintain a particularly tight relationship with the biblical texts.¹⁹ So for instance, Carson says that BT involves a generally closer connection to the Bible than is usually reflected in systematic theology,²⁰ and that it is impossible to have any sort of responsible biblical theology apart from careful, responsible exegesis.²¹ Rosner also emphasizes that close connection when he states that BT subscribes to the primacy of the text.²² Tom Schreiner concurs, saying that virtually all would agree that fundamental to any biblical theology is the studying of the text in its historical context.²³ Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum share this perspective, calling BT a hermeneutical discipline and arguing that its task is to "exegete texts in their own context and then, in light of the entire Canon, to examine the unfolding nature of God’s plan and carefully think through the relationship between before and after in that plan which culminates in Christ.²⁴ James Barr goes so far as to say that the work of biblical theology is actually a level within the normal activity of exegesis rather than a special and separate activity."²⁵ Because BT as an academic discipline requires its practitioners to pay close attention to the text of Scripture, exegesis becomes a key component for any biblical-theological pursuit.²⁶

In keeping with this well-established trait of BT, this study of DRA in the NT will be grounded in the exegesis of particular biblical texts. Specifically, after determining the relevance of a passage through the use of the three criteria described above, I will proceed to examine its description of DRA by reading the text according to its literal/intended sense.²⁷ This will involve attending to (1) text-critical considerations, (2) normal procedures of grammatical-historical exegesis,²⁸ (3) the passage’s immediate literary context and genre, (4) any potential insights from speech-act theory, (5) a text’s use of other biblical passages, and (6) any relevant implications from the passage’s canonical context. My assumption is that by attending to these different factors,²⁹ one may approach the goal of exegesis, which is to understand the original author’s intention.³⁰ Thus, in keeping with the exegetical character of BT, I will attempt to understand and describe what each NT author intended to communicate with regards to DRA.³¹

Inductive Approach

According to many, BT as a discipline is devoted to the inductive study of the biblical texts;³² in other words, biblical theologians generally attempt to let the Bible itself set the theological agenda.³³ So for instance, Hafemann and Schultz assert as one of ten theses on BT that biblical theology should develop its theological categories inductively from the biblical text, not from a predetermined systematic framework.³⁴ Likewise, Gentry and Wellum claim that BT must be intratextual: "We are to read the Scripture on its own terms, i.e., intratextually. Scripture is to be interpreted in light of its own categories and presentation since Scripture comes to us as divinely given, coherent, and unified.³⁵ Carson agrees, stating that the biblical theologian must in the first instance seek to deploy categories and pursue an agenda set by the text itself.³⁶ With respect to NT theology in particular, Stuhlmacher’s very first principle is that a theology of the New Testament must allow the New Testament itself to dictate its theme and presentation.³⁷ And as far as Hart is concerned, The distinctive contribution which biblical theology makes (and the key point of its value for systematic theology) is precisely this, that in its engagement with the text as a whole, its concern is to allow the text’s own categories, concerns and emphases to speak."³⁸ Thus, there seems to be somewhat broad agreement that BT involves approaching the biblical texts in a fundamentally inductive manner.³⁹

As we have seen, BT practitioners share a common concern to allow the Bible to dictate what subjects are to be studied and how they are to be studied. In order to pursue this goal, scholars have developed a number of different methods and approaches. Many have advocated for the usefulness of thematic approaches to BT.⁴⁰ As Scobie notes, Studies of particular themes or topics which are traced through both Old and New Testaments are clearly a form of Biblical Theology.⁴¹ In fact, many whole-Bible BT’s have famously attempted to demonstrate that a single, central theme unifies the entire canon.⁴² While scholars debate the prudence of seeking the Bible’s center, few have denied the plausibility of thematic studies in general.⁴³ Nevertheless, in order to remain truly inductive, thematic studies must (1) demonstrate that the theme under consideration is actually attested by the biblical texts,⁴⁴ and they must (2) allow each biblical author to make his own unique contribution to the development of the concept.⁴⁵ Any thematic study that does not attend to these points fails to approach the text according to its own terms and therefore cannot be considered a work of BT.

In addition, studying the canon inductively does not require scholars to limit themselves to the analysis of biblical vocabulary.⁴⁶ On the contrary, Rosner correctly observes that concepts rather than words are a surer footing on which to base thematic study such as that involved in biblical-theological synthesis.⁴⁷ And while analyzing a concept as opposed to a lexeme requires systematization, Hasel is correct to contend that a degree of systematizing the material content of biblical books and groups of writings is inevitable and that such a process is legitimate so long as the principles for systematizing . . . derive inductively from Scripture itself.⁴⁸ Thus, one way to do BT would be to examine a theme within the canon (or a section of the canon) by demonstrating its importance within the biblical texts and by taking special care to describe the concept in ways that accord with the various testimonies of the biblical authors. This is in fact what will be attempted in this project.

As an expression of BT, this volume focuses on tracing the theme of DRA through the NT. By engaging in a close reading of a number of passages, it will be shown that the concept of DRA is a meaningful NT category since it designates a type of divine agency repeatedly attested throughout these books. Furthermore, the following study also attempts to let every NT author have their say with regards to the nature of DRA. And in order to respect each author’s contribution, a set of four polarities (i.e., retributive vs. non-retributive, mediated vs. immediate, active vs. passive, eternal vs. non-eternal) will be used as a framework for representing their varied perspectives regarding the concept. While one might question whether the use of this framework violates the inductive character of BT, I would contend that these polarities actually reflect the Scriptures’ own ways of characterizing DRA; thus, this framework serves the function of allowing each relevant passage to have a voice of its own.⁴⁹

Canonical Orientation

Scobie notes the importance of the canon to biblical theology when he says, Biblical theology is canonical theology.⁵⁰ While exegesis is necessary, BT does more than interpret passages in isolation;⁵¹ instead, BT must also concern itself with the entire canonical witness and it must read particular passages in light of their situatedness within the canon.⁵² So Hafemann and House posit that "biblical theology seeks its content and coherence in the final propositions and basic ordering of the Old and New Testaments read in their entirety, in their final form, and in concert with one another.⁵³ And according to Hasel, it is only with the entire Bible as the proper context of the biblical-theological enterprise [that] we are able to grasp the full potential of biblical theology.⁵⁴ Sailhamer comes to similar conclusions in his description of OT theology: OT theology is not complete in itself. . . . OT theology can only be complete as the first part of a biblical theology, one that includes both an Old and a New Testament theology in a final integrated whole.⁵⁵ Finally, Stuhlmacher stresses that, while the OT and NT can be distinguished, they cannot be separated; moreover, the task of BT always has the two-part canon in view, so that a NT Theology must respect and work through the special rooting of the New Testament message of faith in the Old Testament."⁵⁶ Thus, at least among those who adopt a confessional approach,⁵⁷ there is wide agreement that works of BT must attend to (or show an awareness of) the ways in which individual parts of the Bible contribute to the meaning of the whole, as well as the ways in which the canonical situatedness of particular texts bear upon their meaning.⁵⁸

The following volume is the second in a two-part study of the Bible’s witness to DRA as a whole. In keeping with the canonical aspect of BT, the two-volume project will also exhibit two features. First, it will seek to include every relevant passage from within the Protestant canon.⁵⁹ On the one hand, this means that the attempt will be made to identify and incorporate every canonical text that bears witness to DRA. On the other hand, it also means that extra-biblical texts will not be considered directly relevant to the project.⁶⁰ Second, the two-volume project will attend to both the diversity and the unity that exists between the OT and the NT.⁶¹ As Childs states, the task of the responsible exegete is to hear each testament’s own voice, and both to recognize and pursue the nature of the Bible’s diversity.⁶² Thus, a biblical-theological study should take care not to drown out the witness of either testament; instead, both need to be allowed to have their respective voices heard. And yet, Childs rightly goes on to say that the biblical theologian’s reflection is directed to the connection between the Old and New Testaments in an effort ‘to give an account of his understanding of the Bible as a whole . . . inquiring into its inner unity.’⁶³ In other words, canonical BT should also explore possible points of unity between the two testaments.⁶⁴ Thus, when taken together, the two-volume study attempts to do justice to the disparate and yet