I have suggested a thought that opens up further possibilities - what if the Christ as a word is not meant to mean exclusively Jesus? What if the anointing of say Psalm 23 points to a knowledge of God that is every bit the same as the knowledge and anointing in the Holy Spirit that is written of in the NT?
You sate with oil my head
my vessel is full
What if we recognize the ambiguity of words like Messiah, servant, son, elect etc and apply them in preaching - to Israel, the the king of Israel, to the individual who fears God, to the New Testament believer, to Jesus as having this Spirit without measure?There is analytical work to do (and I am thinking about it) - but I have to say as one to whom our Lord has been kind, that the kindness I find in the Psalms is completely the same as the end of kindness that is pointed to in the NT and is the substance of the Mercy Seat.
Sure 'Christ' is in the OT - but not just as a pointer to the completeness that is in Jesus, also as a recognition, for example, of the work of the referee implied in Job, and the anointed king / Israel in the Psalms (e.g. 89) and also as a recognition of the work of the Spirit (hidden in the OT but still there) that moves and trains the individual as one of those under the mercy in hearing, obedience, love, and the confidence of completeness that we find in the individual psalms, whether this anticipates the completeness in Jesus or even the completeness of an individual.
That last sentence is based on the observation that the individual in Psalm 1 has become the plurality of the Chasidim in psalm 149. It is the role of the Chasidim to "bind their kings in chains" - the very thing that the Anointed of Psalm 2 is tasked to do - but also that the willing people of psalm 110 do on behalf of the king.
This individual is also the reader / poet of Psalm 119. What does this earthling say of itself? From alef to Taf it is one of those who are joyful and walk in the teaching - and it is one that wanders and needs to be sought.
All joy for those who are the complete of the way
who walk in the teaching of יְהוָה
Time and again I am straying like a sheep that has perished
seek your servant for I do not forget your commandments.
Time and again I am straying like a sheep that has perished
seek your servant for I do not forget your commandments.
Is it this one who is chosen? or anointed? Do we apply the psalms to Christ? We certainly can apply the psalms to the anointed Jesus and also to the anointed king - like David, and they apply to Israel, and anointing applies to the priestly caste. Can the anointing be in with and on a single reader?
I have always taken an affirmative answer for this question as far as salvation in the NT is concerned. Then as I started to read the Psalms closely and realized how severely I wander (not that I did not know this earlier), I wondered: Was God testing me as an individual only - and outside of Christ - when I knew myself to be in Christ? No - in or out, what I knew was with me and therefore I was in. But I was also in a space which was before the time of the Anointed Jesus yet still anointed. Faults, failures aside - of which there are plenty in all eras, God answers the prayer of the last verse of Psalm 119 equally in all eras. It is this apparent fact that makes me question not the reality of Jesus and his own work and Anointing but the ways we have thought about Jesus and substituted Christ for Jesus without thinking.
I have always taken an affirmative answer for this question as far as salvation in the NT is concerned. Then as I started to read the Psalms closely and realized how severely I wander (not that I did not know this earlier), I wondered: Was God testing me as an individual only - and outside of Christ - when I knew myself to be in Christ? No - in or out, what I knew was with me and therefore I was in. But I was also in a space which was before the time of the Anointed Jesus yet still anointed. Faults, failures aside - of which there are plenty in all eras, God answers the prayer of the last verse of Psalm 119 equally in all eras. It is this apparent fact that makes me question not the reality of Jesus and his own work and Anointing but the ways we have thought about Jesus and substituted Christ for Jesus without thinking.
Just wrote a whole lot here and lost it! Ah.... the patience the web requires....
ReplyDeleteI've been pondering where you're going here since Friday. And came to write a few thoughts to your Friday post (which, to me already seemed like a road you'd started out on - even if you didn't know where you were going exactly). But now that you have this post up, I have thoughts going in two directions.
First of all, the Trinity is, was, and ever will be. And for God there is no time (such as we know it - in spite of the fact that God can break into time and into the life of any one of us - at any time of His choosing). So the anointing you speak of, the anointing of the Spirit, cannot but be the same - for all time. Thus, the Incarnation IS. The Anointing of the Spirit IS. "Israel" as God's Chosen People IS. The Body of Christ IS. The Word IS. The Communion of Saints IS. And in our Orthodox Tradition we venerate, as members of the Communion of Saints the Prophets of the Old Testament, etc. (So that may help you to go a bit further down the theological road you're on - perhaps.)
Next, the thing I've been thinking about a lot is how come many people may not see the Hand of God as Word, as Christ in the Old Testament? (Recall that Christ and the Spirit are considered by the Fathers to be the "two hands of God")
Next, I'm thinking that it requires the gift of empathy to enter into the thinking of another. Whether into the thinking of another person or whether entering into, you could say, the "mind of Israel" in the Old Testament, the fertile soil into which Jesus was born.
Word: I'm thinking how so often in the Prophets we read: "The Word of God came to ...." And we also read how the anointing of the Spirit came not just to those appointed to assist Moses but even to others "who were prophesying". And God is free, of course, to anoint those whom He chooses. Indeed, again within the Orthodox tradition, there are Spiritual Fathers (and Mothers, I assume), who were never ordained and yet came to be venerated as having "acquired" the Holy Spirit's anointing. Also, think of the priesthood of our baptism. So God chooses many of us... and if we happen to be listening... we are invited down these paths...
Ok, back to this "gift of empathy". I honestly think that not everyone is capable of "seeing" what you are seeing (or feeling your way into here). Just as Jesus discussed, some can be told or shown, but simply can't "see" or "hear". And that's not for us to judge of course.
Now I happen to agree with you so much on where it seems to me you're headed here. Even if I may be viewing it a bit differently from you - who can say? Since no one is inside the mind of another.
For myself I am convinced that close reading of the entire Bible is necessary - and that God's Word has been unfolding from the moment of creation - and within the Trinity ... well, forever, likely in a way we cannot conceptualize. So, just as our human mind grows and develops, so did scripture grow and develop. So does our understanding of scripture grow and develop. To me, key is to remember that the Trinity is ACTIVE throughout the Bible. Old Testament. New Testament. How can it not be???
So the bible is like the internet in a sense. Lots of ways to interconnect. Ways still hidden, we can assume, even across books or within verses. Much to ponder. To allow into our hearts.
Well, I'll leave it there for now. I'm interested to see where you go with this. I hope you find these comments helpful in some way.
Peace be with you.
Wow - you are true to your name - bless you for listening and helping so. I have another post in draft on the Logos and this note about 'the word' is important. You are right in that I am not sure where my Lord is taking me and I am questioning the literal mechanics of incarnation and even the doctrine of the Trinity - though I have no difficulty 'justifying' these doctrines from Scripture both Old and New.
ReplyDeleteAt the time when we come to celebrate eternity enclosed in the womb of Mary and the seed of woman, this pondering is blessed.
An aside re losing stuff. Sometimes I think it is the will of the Spirit that I lose a thought that is typed - it comes back later...
ReplyDeleteand sometimes, being aware of the vaguaries of software, I do ctrl-a, ctrl-c in the comment or blog editor and save my text in notepad before pressing OK.
Yes, Bob, I should have "saved" - but ... um...
ReplyDeleteI cannot explain the mechanics of the Incarnation, nor would I try. I accept the "Mystery of the Incarnation" as something I will never understand. And it simply does not bother me to be in the dark here. Same thing the Trinity. I think both are interconnected, however, and bear on "indwelling" of the Divine Life in one's heart.... as well as a sense of oneself as dwelling within the same Divine Life. (Also, personally, I find Greek philosophy less helpful here, for example the Logos term, than Semitic thinking which allows for the One and the Many to be the Same. I suspect the Trinity and the Incarnation are like that perhaps. So if we utilize the Hebrew sense of Israel as both Jacob and a People.... thus Trinity being God and Father/Son/Holy Spirit. That's why I like the term Holy Mystery instead of God. Or why not Ha-Shem?)
For myself I make a distinction between my faith in the Trinity and so-called "doctrine" which is often just "a waste of words" or "speculative flights of fancy" by people who, for whatever reason wanted to "explain" what we can never truly comprehend - unless via some mystical experience, which is usually pretty hard to put into words anyway.
When it comes to Mysteries of the Faith, I myself prefer those who meditate/ponder the Mystery... in a poetic vein of awe, prayer, humility. From these I can, at the very least, glean some sense of the Presence of God. There is a saying of the Fathers that the one who truly prays is a theologian and a true theologian is a person of prayer, which is another way of expressing it.
To some degree we can all only speak from our own hearts. Trying to explain in words what we've experienced or where we feel we're groping as God leads us ever deeper into these mysteries. So I would urge you to consult your heart - and speak from the heart - even if of course your language has to come from the brain. Prayer of the Heart, again via the Orthodox Tradition, speaks of praying with one's "mind in the heart" - which is yet another way of putting this and goes back to the Fathers.
The closer you stay to the Scriptures and your own experience of God's "hand" in your life - and making use of the early Fathers (or those who stay close to the scriptures, prayer, and the early Fathers - and that of COURSE includes the entire Hebrew tradition/Semitic mindset), using simple language if possible (language of the heart), then I think we could say you're speaking under the power of God's anointing.
God seeks us. Finds a way into those with open hearts. Or finds a way to break open some closed hearts. In every generation, as it says in the Old Testament, Wisdom enters holy souls and makes them friends of God. I think that's where you're headed here.
Shalom!