Thomas Goodwin question

[py3ak]

I found this quote from Thomas Goodwin in the Treasury of David

“The volume of the book,” etc. When I first considered Rom_5:14 and other Scriptures in the New Testament which make the first Adam, and the whole story of him both before and after, and in his sinning or falling, to be the type and lively shadow of Christ, the second Adam; likewise observing that the apostle Paul stands admiring at the greatness of this mystery or mystical type, the Christ, the second Adam should so wonderfully be shadowed forth therein, as Eph_5:32, he cries out, “This is a great mystery,” which he speaks applying and fitting some passages about Adam and Eve unto Christ and his church; it made me more to consider an interpretation of a passage in Heb_10:7, out of Psa_40:7, which I before had not only not regarded, but wholly rejected, as being too like a postil gloss. The passage is, that “when Christ came into the world,” to take our nature on him, he alleged the reason of it to be the fulfilling of a Scripture written in “the beginning of God's book,” έν καφαλίδι Βιβλίου, so out of the original the words may be, and are by many interpreters, translated, though our translation reads them only thus, “In the volume of the book it is written of me.” It is true, indeed, that in the fortieth Psalm, whence they are quoted, the words in the Hebrew may signify no more than that in God's book (the manner of writing which was anciently in rolls of parchment, folded up in a volume) Christ was everywhere written and spoken of. Yet the word κεφαλις, which out of the Septuagint's translation the apostle took, signifying, as all know, the beginning of a book; and we finding such an emphasis set by the apostle in the fifth chapter of the Ephesians, upon the history of Adam in the beginning of Genesis, as containing the mystery, yea, the great mystery about Christ, it did somewhat induce, though not so fully persuade, me to think, that the Holy Ghost in those words might have some glance at the story of Adam in the first of the first book of Moses. And withal the rather because so, the words so understood do intimate a higher and further inducement to Christ to assume our nature, the scope of the speech, Heb. 10, being to render the reason why he so willingly took man's nature: not only because God liked not sacrifice and burnt-offering, which came in but upon occasion of sin, and after the fall, and could not take sins away, but further, that he was prophesied of, and his assuming a body prophetically foresignified as in the fortieth Psalm, so even by Adam's story before the fall, recorded in the very beginning of Genesis, which many other Scriptures do expressly apply it unto. - Thomas Goodwin.

Does anyone know where in Goodwin's works this extract can be found?

And what do people think of this, as hermeneutical method, and as theology?

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Reuben -- The source is Vol. 7, pp. 69-70 of Goodwin's Works, Of the Creatures, and the Condition of Their State by Creation.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

I don't know if I am persuaded (on that short excerpt) of what seems to be Goodwin's import. But my books are inaccessible at this time, so I cannot read him in context to judge it.

I will say, that I do not think we have true pre-fall prophecy (in the sense that he is predicted without reference to the fall) of the bodily coming of Christ. Of course, it's clear that in the decree of God, there is already present at the instant a full plan, and there are elements created from the beginning which will prove consonant with the unfolding of that plan. I do not think that the creation of Adam in a body typifies somehow the incarnation of Christ without refence to sin that will necessite such an incarnation. One would need to explain why an Incarnation would be desireable without reference to sin. And that, I think, is very much missing.

I do not think it necessary to insist that a reference to "the beginning" of the book must refer to creation itself or the pre-fall state. It is perfectly reasonable to point to the fall, and the proto-evangelum (Gen. 3:15) and see just there a prophecy of the coming of Christ in a body. And that prediction is sufficiently close to the "beginning of the book" that I can see no reason to deny it (assuming that is a correct gloss).

Let me just add, on the other hand, that I do usually respect Goodwn's insights. And I think that he does a good job (as did many of his Puritan contemporaries) in finding Christ all over the Old Testament.

 

[MW]

Christocentric supralapsarianism. A good doctrine based on the wrong text. Perhaps we could call Ps. 40 and Heb. 10 supporting texts once we properly understand the Pauline two Adam theology of Rom. 5 and 1 Cor. 15.

 

[py3ak]

Andrew, thanks for the reference. I don't have my Goodwin with me at the moment either, but I do want to check that quote out in context.

Rev. Winzer, I actually thought of your previous statements on Christological supralapsarianism when I read that. It was also interesting to me that for Goodwin the two-Adam theology is present in Ephesians 5. That would seem to have some implications for exegesis.

Bruce, I was actually wondering about that. If we take Christological supralapsarianism to be established, do we have to base anything on it about Christ having become incarnated even without the fall, etc? In general, even, is there any point to asking "what if" questions. The decree included the Fall and the Incarnation; there was no other way it could ever have been.

All: what do you think of the way Goodwin takes up the hint of an OT narrative background in NT passages? It seems like he is doing what NT Wright recommends as the only feasible alternative to interpretive minimalism, and doing it better.

 

[py3ak]

Bump. And I see that Andrew linked to v.7 online: but my dial-up turns that into a nightmare.