INTRODUCTION Isaiah prophesied in Judah during the reigns of several different kings (1:1). To understand his prophecies, we need to know something about the times in which he was preaching. THE TEXT “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Usziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah . . . .” (Isaiah 1:1-20). (more…) Read more
1 Corinthians 14:26: Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. Paul portrays the church as a body. That captures the unity and diversity of the church. The church is a single body, but it is made up of many organs and members. But Paul’s image of the body is more specific. Eyes don’t just look out for themselves. ... Read more
2 Kings 2:9-10: And so it was, when they had crossed over, that Elijah said to Elisha, Ask! What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you? Elisha said, Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. So he said, You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall not be so. You know this story. Elijah’s ministry is over, and... Read more
“I hate your new moon festivals,” the Lord says at the beginning of Isaiah, “Bring your worthless offerings no longer; Incense is an abomination to me.” He rejects Israel’s offerings and festivals because their hands are filled with blood and because they oppress the weak. Seek justice, Yahweh says, and I will listen to you. “Reprove the ruthless. Defend the orphan. Plead for the widow.” (more…) Read more
Gregory Nazianzen ( Oration 28,9) says that negative theology is only a starting point, beyond which one must go to state what God is: ”he who is eagerly pursuing the nature of the Self-existent will not stop at saying what He is not , but must go on beyond what He is not, and say what He is ; inasmuch as it is easier to take in some single point than to go on disowning point after point in endless detail, in order, both by... Read more
Paul quotes, alludes to, or echoes Isaiah 40-66 over twenty times in the letter to the Romans. Many of the major moves of the letter are linked with references to Isaiah, argues J. Edward Walters. The thesis that God reveals His righteousness to the Jew first and also to the Greek is similar to the LXX of Isaiah 51:4-8. He quotes directly from Isaiah 52:5 when he charges Jews with doing the very things they condemn in others, and quotes... Read more
Where does Paul get the notion that Abraham is “heir of the world”? Mark Forman argues in a 2009 JSNT article that it arises from Paul’s seeing the story of Abraham through the lends of Isaiah 54. Applying Richard Hays’s criteria for identifying echoes, Forman concludes that “there is good evidence that Paul is intentionally echoing this passage from Isa. 54 in Romans 4: the passage explicitly occurs in Galatians; there is a degree of verbal and conceptual correspondence... Read more
In a 1962 article, one Leslie Allen connections Paul’s discussion of the work of the Last Adam in Romans 5 with the work of the Servant of Isaiah: ”In Paul’s great formulation of the origin and effect of sin and its redemptive counteraction in Christ (Romans v. 12 ff.) it has been recognized that the concepts of the Son of Man and of the Servant have been united. O. Cullmann has written of v. 19: ‘Verse 19 shows clearly that the apostle had in mind... Read more
“It used to be believed by the vulgar,” wrote Evelyn Waugh, “that there were enough pieces of this ‘true cross’ to built a battleship.” Waugh disagreed: “In the last century a French savant, Charles Rohault de Fleury, went to the great trouble of measuring them all. He found a total of 4,000,000 cubic millimeters, whereas the cross on which our Lord suffered would probably comprise some 178,000,000.” He concludes: “As far as volume goes, therefore, there is no strain on... Read more
The concept of nature is front-loaded. Nature is what things are in their origin. Hence physis sometimes means “birth.” Hence too Arius: If the Father is ungenerated and the Son begotten, then they must have distinct natures. Athanasius and the Cappadocians deny the premise. True, the Father is ungenerated in every sense; He is not even begotten. The Son is ungenerated in the sense that He is eternal; but He is begotten. He originates from the Father, while the Father... Read more
Leithart
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In