<\/p>
According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, \u201cThe whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man\u2019s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.\u201d But what counts as a \u201cgood and necessary consequence\u201d and by what sort of logic may such consequences be \u201cdeduced\u201d? I suspect that most would read \u201cdeduce\u201d as endorsing syllogistic deductions from the text. (But whose logic is being endorsed? Aristotle\u2019s? Ramus\u2019? Bertrand Russell\u2019s?) <\/p>\n
What of good and necessary \u201ctypological\u201d or \u201cChristological\u201d deductions? In his book on Mark, Joel Marcus points out that the phrase \u201cit is written\u201d is used in the NT not only to introduce direct quotations but also to introduce exegetical conclusions drawn from several texts. For instance, there is no OT text that says Elijah would suffer, as Mark 9:13 claims. Marcus suggests that this conclusion arises from Mark\u2019s recognition that the Messiah whose way the new Elijah prepares will be a suffering Messiah. The logic is: The Son of Man shall suffer; Elijah comes first to prepare His way; thus, Elijah must, like the Son of Man, suffer. <\/p>\n
Even if Marcus is wrong about the logic, he is right about the basic point: The OT does not say that \u201cthey will do to Elijah whatever they please,\u201d and yet Mark says that this is \u201cwritten.\u201d How does he know? Perhaps he knows because he has inferred a conclusion from various OT texts; perhaps he knows because the color of \u201cwhat is written\u201d was modulated by its fulfillment in Christ (that is, his \u201cproof\u201d from the OT depends, circularly, on trusting that the story reaches its climax in Jesus). <\/p>\n
However Mark arrived at this, what stands written involves not only the words of the text but \u201cgood and necessary consequences . . . deduced\u201d from the text by some sort of Christo-logic. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, \u201cThe whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man\u2019s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.\u201d But what counts as a \u201cgood and necessary consequence\u201d and by what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hermeneutics"],"yoast_head":"\n