The Promise

Update 2006 December

2006-12-21T21:24:42-06:00

Christmas came early this year!

I received and email from Chris Ross in Australia informing me that Dr. Ted Hildebrandt of Gordon College has Willis Beecher's 'The Prophets and The Promise' online.

What a tremendous providential blessing! (I was planning to scan and edit the book for posting during the next two weeks. )

I decided to put any articles I'm not hosting under "Links", so that's where the book is.

Thanks for reading and writing... and Merry Christmas!

Update 2006 May

2006-05-28T14:46:24-05:00

Three things.

1. Andrew Vogel pointed me to Larry R. Helyer's work 'Yesterday, Today, and Forever: The Continuing Relevance of the Old Testament'. Dr. Helyer is Professor of Biblical Studies/Christian Education/Philosophy at Talyor University in Upland, Indiana. Dr. Kaiser wrote the forward. I've added it to the "Books" section.

2.While following Way of the Master links I came across the works of Dr. James D. Strauss who taught at Lincoln Christian Seminary in Lincoln, Illinois. World View Eyes keeps Dr. Strauss' documents online...of which is a section entitled 'Promise Theology and Theology of Grace'. Well worth the visit. (I've added it to the "Articles" section for now, however I may need to create a "Links" section.)

3. Finally, I decided to make some bookmark index cards about the basics of Promise Theology. They're designed to be printed on the same sheet of paper (front and back) and then cut into 3 x 5 index cards. These are in the "Articles" section.

If you link or reference this site, please let me know.

Thanks for the emails!

Update 2005 December

2005-12-08T00:15:06-06:00

I've added three new articles. They are:

I've had them for a while but was waiting for permission to post.

Special thanks to Sean LeRoy, Pastor of Calvary Chapel Kirkland!

Update 2005 October

2005-10-22T21:49:15-05:00

I was twice blest last week!

First, I was sent all of Dr. Kaiser's JETS articles I was missing. They're up on the side column now and they are:

The Present State of Old Testament Studies
The Davidic Promise And The Inclusion Of The Gentiles (Amos 9:9-15 And Acts 15:13-18): A Test Passage For Theological Systems
The Current Crisis In Exegesis And The Apostolic Use Of Deuteronomy 25:4 In 1 Corinthians 9:8-10
The Promise To David In Psalm 16 And Its Application In Acts 2:25-33 And 13:32-37
Inner Biblical Exegesis As A Model For Bridging The “Then” And “Now” Gap: Hos 12:1-6
God's Promise Plan and His Gracious Law
New Approaches To Old Testament Ethics

Second, I received and email from Dr. Kaiser.

The key book in my estimation is Willis J. Beecher, The Prophets and the Promise. This was his 1904 Stone lecture at Princeton, often reprinted. It is the most important book you can read even though the section on the prophets is way out of date.

...The concept is partially in Paul and Elizabeth Achtemeir's The Old Testament Roots of our Faith (Abingdon Press, 1962), but more directly in George Bristow's The Promise of God: God's Unchangeable Purpose throuh Human History (Grand Rapids, MI.: Gospel Folio Press, 1997).

WHY

2005-05-14T16:12:12-05:00

After I became a Christian, I learned from Hank Hannegraff's 'Bible Answerman', Radio Bible Class' 'Discover The Word', and Calvary Chapels the importance of context. “Context, Context, Context”. “A text without context can be a pretext for anything.”

I believed/believe the simplest way to discover the context of a passage is to get a chronological bible. My favorite is 'The One Year Chronological Bible' published by Tyndale House and edited by Tremper Longman (OT) and Grant Osborne (NT).

After my third year reading through the Bible chronologically, I found out about Biblical Theology. Biblical Theology is “ 'diachronic' i.e.”,...a longitudinal approach that pays attention to the chronological sequence of the books and their messages rather than an arrangement dictated by a series of theological, philosophical, or even lexicographical themes, topics, or words. Biblical Theology has had from its inception the basic mission of showing the historical progressiveness of revelation in the Bible. In contradistinction to the other theological disciplines, it is charged with the task of recognizing that revelation basically came in historical events... The interpreter and listener must know what backlog of events, teachings, and terms 'informed' or went into the initial hearing and thus into all valid subsequent listening to that part of Scripture. Only the historic progress of revelation can provide that knowledge.” 1

At the time every Biblical Theology book/website I could find was Covenant/Reformed. Later I found one pair of Dispensational Biblical Theology books.

However, the presuppositions I had made me uncomfortable with both Covenant and Dispensational theologies.

These are my presuppositions:

I believe God is above and beyond time and space and therefore knows all of man's past, present, and future.
I believe God willfully chooses to reveal Himself to man purposefully in space-time history.
I believe God desires man to know Him and therefore is not trying to hide his plan from man nor does He keep changing His plan for man.
Therefore, I believe the simplest, plainest reading/understanding of the Scriptures is the best.

In spring of 2005 I went to a Half-Price Books and picked up a copy of 'The Messiah in the Old Testament' from the series “Studies in Old Testament Biblical Theology” by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.

I can't thank Dr. Kaiser enough for all his work.

I have found hardly anything on Epangelicalism or Promise Theology on the internet, so I decided to start this page as a repository for this view of Biblical Theology.

If you are aware of any Epangelical/Promise Theology information that l should post or link to, I would appreciate you sending me an email.

Thank you.

Enrique Duran, Jr.
A servant of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus.

1. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., The Theology of the Old Testament, The Expositor's Bible Commentary

WHO

2005-05-14T16:06:24-05:00

From what I am able to gather, Promise Theology was first taught by Dr. Willis Judson Beecher (Presbyterian) at Princeton Theological Seminary during the Stone Foundation Lectures between 1902 and 1903. These lectures have been pulished in book form as "The Prophets and the Promise - Being For Substance". Dr. Beecher's biography can be found in this article from Cayuga County, New York, 1904, 'Brief Sketches - Men of Affairs and Professions', third column from the right, fifth paragraph down. His photo may be found in the same publication in 'Photographic Reproductions - Men of Affairs and Professions', far right at the top.

Picking up the Epangelical baton is Dr. Walter Christian Kaiser, Jr. (Evangelical Free Church of America). Dr. Kaiser is currently President of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and the Colman M. Mockler Distinguished Professor of Old Testament. His bio and photo may be found on the GCTS Faculty page.

WHAT

2005-05-14T15:58:35-05:00

This site is dedicated to Epangelicalism or 'Promise Theology'.

THE PROMISE DOCTRINE
The promise of God is one of the greatest unifying themes running throughout the various books of the Bible and binding them into one organic whole. The N.T. men regarded this one Promise as the theme of the whole O.T. Paul argued this way before Agrippa in Acts 26:6–7 saying “And now I stand to be judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers; whereunto our twelve tribe nation, strenuously serving night and day, hopeth to obtain …" Paul's hope was located in the promise. It is expected that someone who is on trial and whose life is on the line would "formulate most carefully the central article of [one's] creed." The most surprising fact is that the apostle did not base his appeal to Agrippa on a number of scattered prediction in the OT (which would be accurate enough in substance but certainly not scriptural in form). Instead, Paul founded his case on a single, definite, all-embracing promise. And the context clearly indicated what promise Paul meant - the same one given to Eve, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. Thus, the offense for which Paul stood accused was the offense that the promise included the Gentiles as well as the Jews! The writer of Hebrews (6:13–15, 17) says Abraham “having endured, …obtained the promise.” Isaac and Jacob were also “heirs with him of the same promise” (Heb. 11:9). There is the formula: “the promise made of God unto our fathers”; not promises, but promise, not predictions, but promise, not a promise, but THE promise doctrine.

This one promise stretches over the total history of the Scriptures in an arc from promise to fulfillment. Often the language of the promise is cast in technical terms of collective nouns (e.g., “seed”) and in carefully chosen phrases deliberately reflecting a “corporate solidarity” of a representative office or a personified people, which finally narrows down to the man Christ Jesus (e.g., Son, Servant, Messiah, Holy One, Chosen One, Branch, etc.). In this way of speaking, the will of God remains single and ever open to its ultimate fulfillment in the triumph of the Man of Promise, but the interim between promise and fulfillment is not filled with separate meanings or senses to these promises which will await another and later sense or meaning in Christ (double fulfillment), but rather the interim is filled with a series of fulfillments or historical events which in themselves as corporate parts of the single plan of God, as seen in this representative office or personified people, constitute a further realization and/or “pledge ” of the final accomplishment of that multi-form salvation and triumph of God. Hence the expressions are deliberately made inclusive of this larger whole by the writers of Scripture, to denote either the many ( Israel ) or the one person (Christ) and so Paul argues in Galatians 3:16, 19. This is neither a double meaning, equivocation of terms, rabbinic exegesis or spiritualizing the text for Christian edification; on the contrary it argues that the writers of Scripture knowingly intended that both their readers and our contemporaries might see that the Promise doctrine was a generic unit with a series of parts, separated by time intervals, but expressed in a language which deliberately could be applied and was applied to the whole process: its nearest fulfillments or even ultimately to the crowning fulfillment which supplied the perspective, joy, and hope for each contemporary manifestation. Only on this basis can one explain the “Servant ” simultaneously being explicitly designated as “Israel” (Isa. 44:1 ) and the person of Christ (Isa. 52:13–14) or the “Son” at once being explicitly designated “all Israel” (Ex. 4:22, Hos. 11:1 ) and Christ (Matt. 2:15).

Therefore, the promise of the “seed” to Abraham is “fulfilled” when Isaac is born and the promise of “a place” is “fulfilled” when Joshua takes Canaan. Fulfilled, yes, but only as “pledges” of the one who can gather up all of the manifold parts of the one promise in himself in their ultimate fulfillment. Thus, a connection is seen between the doctrine of the promise and many of the great doctrines of the gospel, e.g., the salvation of the Gentiles (Gal. 3:8 , 29), the gift of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 3:14; Acts 2:33; 38–39; Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4–5), and the Kingdom of God (Ps. 2:8 ; 45:8; Luke 1:51–55).

It would appear that Hebrews does not warrant a radical break between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’…The Old Testament saints already participate in the New Age in anticipation even though in time they still belong to the old order… The ‘new’ is only different from the old in the sense of completion. ”The “new” began with the “old” promise made to Abraham and David. Its renewal perpetuated all of those promises previously offered by the Lord and now more. Therefore Christians presently participate in the new covenant now validated by the death of Christ. They participate by a grafting process into the Jewish olive tree and thus continue God’s single plan. However, in the midst of this unity of the “people of God” and “household of faith” there is an expectation of a future inheritance. The “hope of our calling” and the “inheritance” of the promise (in contradistinction to our present reception of the promise itself) awaits God’s climactic work in history with a revived national Israel, Christ’s second advent, his kingdom, and the heavens and the new earth. In that sense, the new covenant is still future and everlasting but in the former sense, we are already enjoying some of the benefits of the age to come. With the death and resurrection of Christ the last days have already begun (Heb. 1:1), and God’s grand plan as announced in the Abrahamic-Davidic-New Covenant continues to shape history, culture and theology.

The book of Hebrews “notes the difference between receiving the promise and receiving what is promised. In receiving the promise, recipients are declared heirs; in receiving what is promised, they obtain their inheritance” (Heb. 9:15).

This promise is eternally operative, immutable and irrevocable as witnessed by Hebrews 6:13, 17–18 where God made a promise to Abraham and swore by himself “to show more abundantly unto the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel …" Nor does this immutability concern just the “spiritual seed,” but the “national seed” also as shown by the prophets prediction in Zechariah 10:9–12, after Israel’s return from the Babylonian exile and Paul’s discourse in Romans 9–11.

sampled from:
Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., "The Eschatological Hermeneutics Of 'Epangelicalism': Promise Theology", Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 13:2 (Spring 1970), pp. 92-99
Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., "The Old Promise And The New Covenant: Jeremiah 31:31-34", Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 15:1 (Winter 1972) pp. 12-23
Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., "The Theolgy of the Old Testament", Expositors Bible Commentary (Zondervan 1979), Volume I-Articles, pp 285-305
Walter C. Kaiser Jr., "Toward Rediscovering the Old Testament" (Zondervan 1987), pp. 89