Redemptive-Historical Method - Locating/Reading the Text

THE REDEMPTIVE-HISTORICAL METHOD

From Tim Keller -

2. LOCATING/READING THE TEXT IN ITS TWO CONTEXTS
Sidney Greidanus writes. "We can define 'preaching Christ' as preaching sermons which authentically integrate the message of the text with the climax of God's revelation in the person, work and teaching of Jesus Christ..” This definition assumes that every text has a 'micro' and a 'macro' context.

To understand any particular text of the Bible, we must first put it into the 'micro' context—its historical and linguistic setting, in order to discern the immediate intent of the human author. This is what in the 20th century has come to be known as the 'grammatico-historical' method, and it is crucial. We must use every tool we have to discern what the original author meant to say to the original readers of the text. We study the use of language, we study the historical context. We put the text in the context of the whole book, and so on.

But every Biblical text also has a 'macro' context--its place in the entire Bible which has as its purpose, the revelation of Christ as the climax of all God's redeeming activity in history. We must not only ask: 'what did the human author intend to say to his historical audience?' but also 'why did God in 'scripturate' this as a way of pointing to the salvation of his Son?

So the Redemptive-historical method of interpretation insists that we put each text not only into the context of its original setting and author-intent but also into the context of it’s 'the big story of salvation' as traced above. The interpreter must 'locate' the text, recognizing what place it holds in the developing salvation-story line (i.e. what stage in redemption-history is occupies.) So what does that mean? I suggest the following two practical measures.

A. First. It means recognizing the text's 'limitations'. This may sound a bit shocking-- isn't all Scripture inspired? Of course, but revelation is progressive. If we fail to put a text in its redemptive-historical context, we will run into trouble. For example, if the purpose of the Elijah narratives (as one minister put it] "is to teach us how to walk close to the Lord and be courageous", then we have some problems with the prophet's behavior! Should we go out and kill false teachers as Elijah did with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18)? If we see the purpose of 1 Kings 18 to be mainly instruction on how to live--and if we preach it as such--we will either be simply confused and embarrassed by Elijah's conduct or we will mislead Christians into a holy war mentality (!) ignoring the different stage of redemptive history in which we are now (Matt 26:52). But if the focus of every Biblical text is not on us and our behavior but on God and his saving activity, then the purpose of Elijah's ministry is to point us to salvation in Christ. We can say about Elijah. "Jesus told us to put up our swords and the cross shows us that the kingdom of God moves forward now in sacrificial service. But we do learn here that all religions are not alike!” So we must be aware of the 'limitations' or incompleteness of every stage in redemptive history before Christ.

b. Second. It means teasing out all the text's clues to how salvation 'works'. The traditional 'exemplarist' approach to the Bible (not just the Old Testament. but the New Testament! See note 2 below) tends to look for traits of moral behavior in every text. It asks: 'What do I learn here about prayer? Obedience? How to deal with self-pity? How to raise my children? How to conduct myself sexually? How to handle discouragement?" But if the purpose of every text is to point to God's saving purposes--then we must approach every text asking: “What gospel-pieces are here? What does this text show us about how salvation works? What does it tell me of grace, faith, the nature of sin, the attributes of God as they bear on our relationship to him, the nature of conversion, the results or marks of conversion?" It is only if we do this first that we can then treat the
moral-example aspect of the text properly.

c. Third, it means showing how the salvation 'pieces' only 'come together' eventually in Christ. For example, we may point out that Elijah was of course very courageous on Mt. Camel--but he was only courageous because he knew about God's saving purposes. Unlike Baal and all the pagan gods. the true God did not need worshippers to cut themselves and compel his attention and answers to prayer through their efforts. He knew that with only a word of prayer. God would hear and answer. But this incident participates in the Big Plot-Line of salvation's story. It raises the question: "why would the true God be so utterly different than the gods of the world's religions? why would he listen to his prophet without him cutting himself or dancing furiously or providing a perfect moral performance? Why" The only way the interpreter can answer this is to point ahead in the Scripture to how the plot-line resolves itself. It is because of Jesus who was cut literally to pieces for us and who made a perfect sacrifice for sins so that God can come to us and work with us despite our imperfections.

Note 1. Here then we get to the essence of the issue of 'moralism' and application. On the one hand you could so fear 'moralism' and put so much emphasis on the 'limitation' and partial nature of former ages of revelation that you read the text as nothing more than a 'type' of Christ. You may not allow any 'exemplary' force at all to the text to impinge on the listener. This is, however, to forget that every stage in revelation is a stage in redemption-history, very part of the Bible tells us something about how God's salvation 'works'. We learn things about grace, repentance, faith. obedience in every era. On the other hand, 1) just as it is clear in the gospels that the that we are not simply supposed to imitate Christ's example but believe and rest in his work for us (which is the only way we ever will follow his example), and 2) just as it is clear in the epistles that our imperatives ('do this') are based on indicatives ('because you are this'), then 3) whenever we preach on any other character in the Bible we must only exhort people to 'be like' him/her on the basis of faith in the one to whom he/she points.

Note 2: We must not think that 'putting the text into the One Story Line' is something you only have to work on with Old Testament texts. It is just as possible to preach New Testament texts--even Gospel accounts about Jesus--without reference to the overall story line of salvation. It is extremely possible to simply show how much Jesus loves and forgives or how great he is. appealing directly to sentiment, without showing how the particular text points to the longitudinal themes of sin. justice, redemption, and his saving work. It is possible to lift up Jesus simply as an example to emulate. Another example: it is well known that often Paul lays out the 'doctrine' in the early part of his letters and 'practical application' in the latter part. (This is an oversimplification. but a relatively helpful one.) It is extremely easy to preach a sermon on Ephesians 4 about the 'Marks of a Healthy Church' without grounding it in the Christology of Eph I. The same could be said for preaching on 'Love' in 1 Cor 13 without grounding it in the dissension of the Corinthians and its doctrinal solution--the cross (1 Cor 1). In all such cases the preacher is giving listener the strong impression that what it will take to have a healthy church (or a loving life) is simple moral effort.

Note 3: We must not think that 'putting the text into the One Story Line' means that we have to identify one 'longitudinal theme' as the central, controlling theme of the Bible. Many people have tried to demonstrate this. The best candidate is probably the theme of the 'kingdom' and a close second is 'covenant'. No t only do most Biblical theologians disagree with this on hermeneutical grounds. I think it is pragmatically unwise. Every theme has its own nuances and if we choose one theme as the theme we tend to become unbalanced in our understanding of the gospel. We may over-stress the mystical or the legal or the individual or the corporate.