Catholicity, Orthodoxy, and Lordship
This is the first of many podcasts offering an overview of Through New Eyes by James B. Jordan. In this episode, we discuss the nature of symbols and types and how creational language serves as patterns throughout the Scriptures. This is a quick-and-dirty intro to stir your appetite for more content.
My Interview with Canon Calls on “Who is James B. Jordan” is here.
Even though many free episodes are coming, this series is for Subscribers only. Subscribe for $1 a month.
Just a sample of the vast wisdom of James B. Jordan. These basic paragraphs from one of his essays in 1982 challenged virtually everything I thought about the reality of the world. Once these thoughts penetrated my intellect, I could not be the same again. At that moment I realized that the evangelical landscape was not so much embracing a faulty hermeneutic, but adopting a dangerous one to read reality. Once I began to see these things Gnostic premises fleshed out in evangelical worship, theology, and culture, then everything began to make sense and I intentionally set out to carefully re-orient all these themes to fit a more thoroughly biblical view of the world. Of course, we may not all end up in the same place, but we do end up with the same trajectory by rejecting the Gnostic thesis.
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There are many descriptions of Gnosticism, but the best is that which recognizes that Gnosticism is the great counterfeit of Christianity, which has hounded it since the beginning. Gnosticism sees the issues of history in terms of knowledge and power, instead of in terms of faith and obedience. Gnosticism approaches history in terms of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, rather than in terms of the Tree of Life (which is approached on the basis of faith).
Gnosticism sees good and evil dualistically. For the gnostic, there is a realm of evil, with an evil god (Satan) ruling over it. This evil realm invaded God’s domain, seduced humanity, and presently rules the world. God has sent Christ to defeat Satan and to rescue men from his domain. The essence of the work on the cross was not the satisfaction of Divine justice, but a defeat of evil powers. The world is still controlled by these evil powers, and “Christians” are to forsake this world and contemplate the next world. Salvation is rapture out of this world. Individualistic Gnosticism focuses only on the souls of believers and looks only to salvation in the next world. Communal Gnosticism goes one step farther and calls on Christians to forsake society for a separate community within this world while awaiting some form of rapture into the next world.
Since we live in an age of setbacks, it is not always apparent to us that the Kingdom has, in fact, grown. But, if we take a look at the Kingdom in the year 300, we find it suffering in pre-Constantinian tribulation. A few centuries later, the Church was wrestling the tribes of Northern Europe into the Kingdom; while in the East, Christianity experienced a real golden age, and what we call “Nestorian” Christians had influence throughout India and China. A few centuries later, after the high “Middle” ages and the Protestant Reformation, Christianity greatly discipled the European countries, spread to the Americas, and gave birth to the printing press, university education, technology, and many other benefits. During the last century, Christianity extended all over the globe as a result of the missionary movement.
The history of the Church is not a history of smooth advances, however. From what we have seen of Biblical history, we should expect periods of setback. We should expect that an old establishment wears thin, and declines into stultification and error, only to be replaced by a new establishment that does fuller justice to the faith. Each new establishment takes up the strengths of the previous one, but transforms it into something new and more powerful, more glorious.~James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes
It’s that time again. There is much good taking place in Birmingham, AL this week and I am headed over to do some networking and rebelling against the principalities and powers with my fellow Theopolitans.
I have served on the board of the Theopolis Institute for a few years now. By some bizarre logic, the powers that be think I am a benefit to the institute. Of course, in my estimation, serving the institute is more of a happy obligation than anything. Virtually everything that comes out of my mouth, including the incessant display of words, is a direct result of the kind of fascination they instilled in me for biblical, liturgical, and cultural language.
Those theological provocateurs, starting with my old mentor, James B. Jordan, led me on a path to explore new vistas that my poor hermeneutical brain had never contemplated. It changed everything about me. If I read a book, it’s there. If I watch a movie, it’s there.
I remember spending some time in Jordan’s office some years ago sharing my frustration with how difficult it is to convey theological truth in our age. He gently rebuked me and said that the point is not how much we convey, but how it is conveyed. We can bombard the evangelical culture with apologetic fragments, but if we don’t change the hermeneutic of the church, we will always be behind the times. We live in a hermeneutical war.
Leithart wrote recently:
“It may look as if we’re fiddling with typology, Psalmody, and liturgy as the world burns. What we’re actually doing is laying the groundwork – the only solid groundwork – for a renewed world.”
This careful vision articulated may appear naive in light of the times, but it is the very means by which the Church strikes the ideologies of false empires and kingdoms.
“But the White House is advocating for vaccine mandates.” Answer: “Sing Psalms of Imprecation.”
“But the church is being overwhelmed by woke ideologies.”Answer: “Worship heartily each Sunday.”
“But the culture is being indoctrinated by ungodly sexual ethics.” Answer: “Study, recite, and sing the Bible together.”
Much of what I do is a reflection of that vision. In fact, my small role in life is to popularize a biblical mindset that slowly removes the desire for immediacy and establishes an ecclesiastical flavor for the good life in the next 1,000 years. I won’t see it. You won’t see it. But future generations will see and reap a harvest.
I have often said that a small congregation with committed doers and thinkers can easily out-culture a church five times its size. The Christian’s call is to plod along. Numerical success is a blessing, but discipleship through biblical enculturation is even better. If I can teach my son that Jael is a picture of our intellectual responsibility, then we have ourselves an army. A quick glance at Theopolis’ vision is enough to turn the most introverted into a samba dancer:
“We believe that the Spirit of God works through faithful preaching and teaching of God’s Word, through vibrant, rich, transformative Liturgy, and through courageous and diligent pastoral leadership to form the church into an image of the future city of God.”
I subscribe to every ounce of that paragraph as eagerly as I consume Brazilian steak. No meat is left behind. My entire paradigm changed when I first read these guys 20 years ago, and whether you know it or not, if you enjoy anything I write, you are being indoctrinated in the love language of typology, the vibrant ethos of a liturgical movement that has one goal in mind–turn you into a Sisera-killing machine.
We press on driving tent-pegs through the secularized versions of the faith, claiming Jesus as Lord and King, and changing minds one biblical text at a time. I embrace this deep weirdness with the sobriety of a visionary who looks at the plains of Moab and seeks to plant vineyards in the most fertile pieces of land.
Pray for Theopolis Institute, its president, Peter J. Leithart, and our whole tribe as we meet and feast and seek the well-being of the city and the glory of the Triune God. There is so much work to be done, but we are patient plodders planting seeds and inculcating the Gospel hermeneutic in the hearts of pastors and parishioners alike.
Last night we had the honor of attending the send-off party for the Jordan family as they move to Birmingham, AL. Jim and Brenda Jordan have been dear friends of mine and my church community for some time. During my first three years as pastor I had the privilege of working side-by-side with Jim at Providence. He was especially encouraging in that first year. Not only did he add his tremendously musical gifts to our congregation, but his Sunday School series for those three years were life-changing.
Part of what Jim Jordan brings to the table is a life-long commitment to Sola Scriptura. He is, to borrow John Frame’s language, a true biblicist. He bleeds biblical theology. The fact that he does not simply repeat old slogans and the sheer fact that he is so innovative in the field of biblical theology make him a target to many.
His book Through New Eyes offers a profoundly rich theology of symbols; a theology, which if embraced, will make Bible studies not only fascinating, but will make the student of the Bible enlivened to read the Bible again and again and to find connections that affirm the remarkable onenes of biblical revelation.
Many have attached the hermeneutic of interpretive maximalism (Hence IMax.) to James Jordan’s theology. In his 1990 article What is Interpretive Maximalism, Jordan affirms that this hermeneutic contrasts with the minimalist interpreter. David Chilton is his famous Revelation commentary was the first to apply directly the rich nature of Jim’s theology to John’s inspired account. Jordan himself had already given a clear example of that hermeneutic in his Judges commentary, which Chilton references.
In fact, in his Judges commentary he contrasts his approach to the modern evangelical one:
“We have to explain this [i.e., the business about types and prophecies] in order to distance ourselves from the interpretive minimalism’ that has come to characterize evangelical commentaries on Scripture in recent years. We do not need some specific New Testament verse to `prove’ that a given Old Testament story has symbolic dimensions. Rather, such symbolic dimensions are presupposed in the very fact that man is the image of God. Thus, we ought not to be afraid to hazard a guess at the wider prophetic meanings of Scripture narratives, as we consider how they image the ways of God. Such a `maximalist’ approach as this puts us more in line with the kind of interpretation used by the Church Fathers.”
So, part of James Jordan’s controversial hermeneutic is an attempt to affirm the inherent beauty of the Old Testament narrative without depending on some New Testament affirmation. Further, as Jordan writes, IMax. offers a richer Old Testament narrative, since the typological images offer a fuller and more robust picture of Christ in the pages of the pre-AD 70 world.
Jordan sees the grammatico-historical interpretation to be valid, but incomplete without the aid of a rich biblical theology. And this was part of what led his break with some of the well-known theonomic figures. Jordan writes:
I think that those who take this kind of typology seriously are the only people doing justice to the Biblico-theological dimension of interpretation, and my criticism of the Bahnsen-Rushdoony type of “theonomy” is precisely that I don’t think they do justice to this dimension. In common with most of my teachers, I believe that the grammatico-historical “methods” of interpretation need to be complemented by Biblico-theological considerations, and that is what I have sought to do in my own work. (On “theonomy” see James B. Jordan, “Reconsidering the Mosaic Law: Some Reflections — 1988,” available from Biblical Horizons.)
In conclusion, James Jordan uses the term maximalist as a way of communicating that the Bible reader can gain more from the pages of Scripture than they can ever imagine. The Bible is given to us by the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit does not waste his breath. His inspired data is not given simply to fill in empty space, but to provide a fuller and more beautiful portrait of the Gospel.
James Jordan’s fascinating essay entitled Food and Faith speaks about the hunger that God places in man after the fall. Man was fully satisfied in the garden. He found satisfaction in the gifts of Yahweh. As Jordan writes, “Repeatedly throughout the Bible, especially in the wilderness wanderings, God made His people hungry so that they would cry to Him as the only source of life. ” God is the food of weary man. God is our food. Only as we eat his body and drink his blood do we find fulfillment and our hunger is satisfied.
By bringing the serpent to Adam, God teaches us a lesson that the Church has been learning over and over for millennia, and which she has not yet fully learned. We must not try to learn ethics from the lower creation. Matters of right and wrong, which always ultimately concern our relationship with God, must be determined by God’s Word and His Word alone. -James B. Jordan
Since I have been deeply involved in the eschatology debate for over ten years, had some of my works published in other eschatology websites, interviewed postmillennial authors, and have been in the healthy business of proselytizing premils to the postmil position for just as long, I have noticed a few trends. My own transition from pre to postmil was not neat. I wondered in the other premillennial categories and in the “Amillennial parking lot” for a short while.
I confess a deep appreciation for my amillennial brothers. Men like Vos, Horton, and Beale continue to offer fresh insights into the biblical text and to expand the biblical theological vocabulary in some desirable directions. Beale’s work on a theology of worship is a gift to the church.
But while appreciating their labors I also see a trend in the use of language that can be harmful to the postmillennial cause. I refer specifically to the use of the language “already, and not yet.” “This theological concept of “already” and “not yet” was proposed by Princeton theologian Gerhardus Vos early in the 20th century, who believed that we live in the present age, the ‘now’, and await the ‘age to come.” The premillennialist George Eldon Ladd had used similar language when arguing that we taste a little now of the age to come, but not the fullness of it.
Vos and Ladd share similar viewpoints, though they would have differed on their interpretation of I Corinthians 15:24-26. That essentially is the only difference between a historic premil and an amillennialist; a few chronological issues, but a firm agreement on the continuation of the decline of civilization. Some amil scholars still argue among themselves on the identity of a future anti-christ. Other amil thinkers embrace the “optimistic” label to balance out the “amil” label, though this is a more recent phenomenon.
Already, and not yet
This language can be helpful at times, and it has turned into a unified slogan among many in the Reformed camp to combat pre-tribulational theology. Let us assume for the moment that the pre-trib. position is unsustainable and not even worth debating. If this is the case, how is the language of “already, and not yet” been helpful to elaborating the victorious promise of the gospel declared by postmil advocates in the Reformed camp? I venture to say it has not been helpful at all in the postmil eschatological proposal. When the amil advocate uses the language–and the language was coined by amillennial advocates–he means that though we taste a bit of the world to come now, we ought not to expect any type of cosmic manifestation in power and might of the gospel until the Second Coming.
This embodies a largely pessimistic vision of the work of the gospel in the end of history. Again, this is not a debate on the post-resurrection world. There is no debate on that issue. We all affirm the Gospel victory then. The question is: “What will the world look like before Jesus returns at the end of history?” Kenneth Gentry offers a helpful definition of postmillennialism:
“Postmillennialism is the view that Christ will return to the earth after the Spirit-blessed Gospel has had overwhelming success in bringing the world to the adoption of Christianity.”
Assuming this definition, we are affirming that not only will we receive a taste of the world to come in this era of human history, but we will also see with our eyes and touch with our hands the very progress of the Spirit-blessed Gospel in the world.
If not “already, and not yet,” then what?
So what am I suggesting? I am suggesting we no longer use that language, except in very specific cases. This language may be helpful in communicating ideas with someone re-thinking the dispensational position, but even then I recommend caution, since they may be prone to research this language and be led to amillennial writers.
We are not suggesting a utopian society. We believe sin will always be with us until Jesus returns, but we are also affirming that human sin will lose the war against the gospel when it comes to the conversion of the nations. I agree with my mentor, James Jordan, that as the gospel brings people and nations to submit to King Jesus and as the Gospel becomes more prevalent in the national discourse we will also see a greater battle against our own sin since people will become more aware of their struggles. This, however, does not negate the imperative that the nations will come to Zion and worship (Is. 2, 11), but it emphasizes that confession and repentance will always be part of the Christian experience in this world.
Instead of the “already, and not yet” language we may choose to refer to our hope as the “already, already, but not yet,” emphasizing that we will not just taste of the world to come, but also experience the world to come in this world. Obviously this is a long-term strategy. Postmillennialists are not naive to suggest that this Spirit-blessed Gospel will cause world-wide transformation over night, rather this is a long-possibly millennial- project. A double “already” emphasizes the reality of this Gospel vision in history. Further, it emphasizes that we are not simply tasting of the world to come individually, but corporately as a people.
This world is indeed our home, and we long for a renewed world. We do not despise this creation, we long for its restoration.
What other language can we use?
If the “already, already, but not yet” seems like a theological technicality, then I suggest a few other phrases. We are living in the age of “glory to greater glory,” “fulfillment to greater fulfillment,” present, but not fully present,” “joy to greater joy,” blessing to greater blessing.” These are all categories that define the glory of the transformative gospel before the Second Coming.
You may even provide a better and more accurate picture of this truth in words if time allows, but in the meanwhile be cautious with the “already, and not yet” language. History matters to God. And describing that history in certain words can communicate something we do not wish to communicate.
The church must once again become a genuine government, with her own courts, but for this to have any social impact the various churches must recover a genuine commitment to catholicity in practice.
James B. Jordan, Sociology of the Church
If we are to have a true Christian renaissance in the United States, it will not be a superficial yuppiefied religion that brings it. True Christianity must have equal time for Ecclesiastes as for Proverbs in its One Year Bibles.
– James Jordan, An Antidote to Yuppie Postmillennialism