The Fullness of Christ: An Adventist Proposal for Integrating Ethical Trajectory and Christological Typology Hermeneutics
Location
Seminary Commons
Start Date
5-2-2016 10:30 AM
End Date
5-2-2016 11:00 AM
Description
Ethical trajectory hermeneutics describes the underlying unity of the manifold ethical injunctions in scripture as progressive elevation of the ethical standards of God’s people, but is unable to prescribe standards for God’s people today in the absence of a firm definition of the trajectories’ telos. Christological typology hermeneutics describes the underlying unity of Christ’s saving work in history as a progressive realization of God’s Kingdom, but has limited applicability to the formation community standards in the absence of a clearly defined historical-ethical dimension to Kingdom realization. But a synthesis of the two approaches could resolve their lacunae. Eph 4:13-15 suggests that eschatological conformity to the pattern of Christ’s historical instantiation of the divine pattern entails His people’s collective ethical development throughout salvation history. In his Sermon on the Mount and discourse on divorce, Jesus appealed to God’s acts as creator/sustainer as a pattern in order to elevate community standards by making explicit what was previously implicit in OT law. The eschatological consummation of typology could offer the fullness of Christ as the telos for ethical trajectories, while the elevation of standards plotted by trajectories could reveal the ethical dimension of Kingdom realization and the next steps toward its ethical appropriation.
The Fullness of Christ: An Adventist Proposal for Integrating Ethical Trajectory and Christological Typology Hermeneutics
Seminary Commons
Ethical trajectory hermeneutics describes the underlying unity of the manifold ethical injunctions in scripture as progressive elevation of the ethical standards of God’s people, but is unable to prescribe standards for God’s people today in the absence of a firm definition of the trajectories’ telos. Christological typology hermeneutics describes the underlying unity of Christ’s saving work in history as a progressive realization of God’s Kingdom, but has limited applicability to the formation community standards in the absence of a clearly defined historical-ethical dimension to Kingdom realization. But a synthesis of the two approaches could resolve their lacunae. Eph 4:13-15 suggests that eschatological conformity to the pattern of Christ’s historical instantiation of the divine pattern entails His people’s collective ethical development throughout salvation history. In his Sermon on the Mount and discourse on divorce, Jesus appealed to God’s acts as creator/sustainer as a pattern in order to elevate community standards by making explicit what was previously implicit in OT law. The eschatological consummation of typology could offer the fullness of Christ as the telos for ethical trajectories, while the elevation of standards plotted by trajectories could reveal the ethical dimension of Kingdom realization and the next steps toward its ethical appropriation.