Redemptive-Historical vs. Traditional Preaching
Thursday morning was given over to a discussion as to what type of preaching, redemptive-historical or traditional, is the most Biblical.
The Rev. Dr. William Dennison, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Covenant College and a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), presented the case for redemptive-historical preaching. He began by stating that, in his view, there was no longer a peaceful co-existence between the two positions, but that rather there was a cloud of suspicion hanging over the debate. He noted that the Biblical theological approach which he represented had come in for three basic criticisms. One, Biblical theology has its origin as a specific theological discipline in the German Enlightenment. Two, the historical-redemptive genre is one of many genres of Scripture, and therefore the redemptive-historical approach is not the only legitimate one. Three, Biblical theology fails to apply the text of Scripture to the lives of God's people. Biblical theology has been said to be analogous to the way an air plane flies, i.e., never touching the ground.
Dr. Dennison maintained that both sides in the dispute agree on the necessity of application, and the reality of progressive revelation. The problem is the presuppositional grid that informs each perspective. The discussion needs a dose of Cornelius Van Til's methodology, viz., transcendental critique.
The Covenant College professor then gave an overview of Western thought,
as he spoke of the interrelationship of ethics, history, grammar, and rhetoric. The classical view of history was to make it subservient to ethics, and the Medieval church, as well as the Protestant Reformation, largely adopted the Greco-Roman approach to history.
"The relationship among rhetoric, history and ethics found a home in the church, especially with respect to preaching. Preaching was viewed as an application of history." Ethics thus took precedence over history, with the result that the study of history was appreciated more for the moral lessons which it teaches than for its own sake.
Professor Dennison applauded the Reformers for helping to turn the classical world upside down. However, in his view, they like all of us were products of their time, and so did not fully liberate their world-and-life view from the liberal arts tradition.
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, it was Geerhardus Vos, an Old Princeton scholar, who helped to define the discipline of Biblical Theology, and in so doing to recapture some of the pristine perspective of the original Reformers. "Vos saw the focus of history in Christ, not ethics. The focus of history is on Christ, not on morality."
For Dr. Dennis on, the traditional approach of grammatico-historical exegesis should be reversed, so that the emphasis is upon history - an historico-grammatical exegesis.
In his opinion, "Good preaching does not apply the text to you, but applies you to the text. The preacher is not drawing the text into your world, he is drawing you into the world of the text."
An Opposing Voice
Responding to Dr. Dennison was the Rev. John Carrick, also a minister in the OPC. Mr. Carrick, who is Assistant Professor of Applied and Doctrinal Theology at Greenville Seminary, began by stating that the explanation and application of the text is the traditional approach. After referring to Robert Lewis Dabney, who said that preaching is "to make men do", Professor Carrick attacked those who in the Exemplaristic Redemptive/Historical Controversy in Holland in the 1930s and 1940s eschewed the use of Biblical characters as examples. The redemptive-historical advocates also charged the exemplarists with moralism and anthropocentricity.
Professor Carrick, on the other hand, wants to maintain a balance between the objective and the subjective, or between the indicative and the imperative - a balance which he believes "is illustrated by Apostolic preaching."
In his view, redemptive-historical preaching has gone astray in its "failure to note and to implement the indicative-imperative pattern." J. Gresham Machen, one of the founders of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, "highlights the fundamental difference between liberalism and Christianity by saying that liberalism has only the imperative, while Christianity has the indicative as the foundation of the imperative. The Christian preacher begins with a triumphant indicative." However, Machen does not leave it there, but goes to application: "Christianity is not always in the indicative mood."
The New Testament reveals a double indicative into which a double indicative is interwoven. Christ died for sinners (indicative); therefore, repent and believe (imperative). You are dead to sin (indicative); therefore, reckon yourself dead to sin (imperative).
The Necessity of Balance
Professor Carrick, while expressing appreciation for a redemptive-historical perspective, argued for a balanced approach, and he attacked what he called the extremes of the redemptive-historical movement. He noted that Dr. Richard B. Gaffin, generally considered one of the champions of a redemptive-historical approach to Scripture, has himself been critical of some in the redemptive-historical camp who have apparently not been willing to grant a legitimate use of example and of the imperative. With respect to James' use of Elijah as an example of a man of fervent prayer, Dr. Gaffin, according to Professor Carrick, "points out that James has seized on an incidental and subordinate point and turned it into a major point." The Greenville professor rhetorically asked: "Does
the redemptive-historical school regard James' appeal to I Kings 18 to be 'atomistic' and moralistic?"
He continued: "The fact that Christ is our Saviour does not mean that He is not also an example." Atoning value and exemplaristic value lie
side-by-side. Using Gaffin-type language, Professor Carrick declared,
"Christocentricity must not be permitted to
degenerate into Christomonism."
Professor Carrick again appealed to Dr. Gaffin, who has expressed concern that "some redemptive-historical preaching is one-sided, especially because it has an eye only for the typological institutions of the Old Testament. Old Testament figures should be regarded as believers, as well as types." Furthermore, we must not "polarize by underplaying the continuity." And, "some so-called redemptive-historical preaching doesn't do justice to the imperative. There is a concreteness and specificity about the imperatives of Scripture."
Professor Carrick took to task the overemphasis on eschatology, which "goes hand-in-hand with an underemphasis on the ethical. It's one thing to assert that eschatology is prior to soteriology in logical terms; it's another to assert its priority in terms of importance.
Bill Dennison Replies
Dr. Dennison replied by saying, "I don't see myself in terms of the Netherlands discussion [i.e., the exemplaristic v. Redemptive/Historical Controversy, Ed.]. I don't see myself as one who is carrying this battle cry of being against application."
The college professor professed that he didn't recognize himself in the critique that John Carrick had presented of the redemptive-historical school, especially with regard to the lack of the imperative. Dr. Dennison later made reference to a 1979 article of his in the 'Calvin Theological Journal' in which he wrote (approvingly) on the indicative-imperative paradigm. For Professor Dennison, the contemporary controversy is the result of the redemptive-historical and the traditional approaches operating on two different paradigms, with the result that application looks differently to each of the two schools. He agrees that Paul holds up Israel as an example in I Corinthians 10, but he does so in terms of eschatology. "We use examples; but they're examples in the sense that you are in the eschatological drama." In Exodus 32, "Israel was rejecting union with Jehovah God. If they stayed in union with the God who brought them out of Egypt, they would not have made idols. The imperatives [of Scripture] are nonsense without union."
Rejecting Professor Carrick's call for "balance," Dr. Dennison declared, "I'm not interested in 'balance' - that's an Aristotelian golden mean idea. . . The Christian life is indicative and imperative. I'm interested in the intimate . . . or existential union. You just don't have the Christian life [without] ... loving God and keeping His commandments."
He continued: "Your life is found in the Bible. In terms of 'example,' it's not the example of aspiration but the example of assimilation. Aspiration is Platonic - 'Jesus is the ideal to which you aspire to be."' Rather, you assimilate the life pattern. Aspiration is works-religion. "You're called to suffer in the world, and as you do so, you will be exalted with Christ. He allows you to live the exact same life pattern. . . . You walk in the world as a suffering servant. . . . The Platonic model of aspiration ... is nothing but works-righteousness."
John Carrick Responds
Prof. Carrick said that it was reductionistic to attribute the exemplary or moralistic strain in interpretation uniquely to the classical tradition, as if the word of God itself did not sanction the use of such a strain.
Despite Dr. Dennison 's protestations, Professor Carrick stated that
Kerux, a journal on biblical theological preaching edited by James T. Dennison, Bill's brother, "does represent the extreme wing" of the redemptive-historical approach. Speaking of the sermons found in Kerux, he
stated: "You can count the imperatives on the fingers of your hands. It's all in the indicative mood."
Prof. Carrick also rejected Bill Dennison's assertion: "When Christ died, I died with Him. There is no imperative beyond that paradigm." Carrick noted that it was wrong so to highlight definitive sanctification that one neglected the imperatives of progressive sanctification with which the New Testament literally teems.
He maintained that "we do believe in Biblical theology; but, we don't want to emphasize Biblical theology to the exclusion of systematic theology and the grammatico-historical approach."
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