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CTF 2024 Session 5 - Confessional Guidelines for Scripture Interpretation

Richard Barcellos · 2024-04-28 · 7,352 words · 50 min

Confessing the Faith - 2024

Welcome to everyone. It's good 
to be back in this venue for this conference. And just again, 
a heartfelt welcome to everybody that is attending and especially 
to our speakers, Dr. Renahan, Dr. Barcelos. Again, 
a thanks to the Free Reform Congregation here in Chilliwack for making 
this venue available for us. Just one quick announcement. 
There's a lot of food. And I don't think the people 
who brought the food want to bring the food home. So, when 
it is break time, please help yourself. There's more room now 
in the gym, so you can spend time in there, near the food, 
taking as much as you want and enjoying some fellowship in that 
capacity. So, that's it. The format is 
on the schedule. We're going to try to stick close 
to that. Hopefully, you got your questions in, in the manner that 
was suggested in the book. Well, I wanna start this session 
by reading Psalm 110, this idea of Christ as scope of the whole. We certainly see Christ in Psalm 
110. So I wanna read Psalm 110, and then I'll pray, and then 
we'll sing another psalm. So Psalm 110, beginning in verse 
one, a Psalm of David. The Lord said to my Lord, sit 
at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. 
The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion. Rule 
in the midst of your enemies. Your people shall be volunteers 
in the day of your power. In the beauties of holiness from 
the womb of the morning, you have the due of your youth. The 
Lord has sworn and will not relent. You are a priest forever according 
to the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand. 
He shall execute kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge 
among the nations. He shall fill the places with 
dead bodies. He shall execute the heads of 
many countries. He shall drink of the brook by 
the wayside. Therefore, he shall lift up the 
head. Amen. Well, let us pray. Our gracious 
God and Holy Father, we thank you for this opportunity to gather 
together again to sing your praises, to hear your truth, and to encourage 
one another in the fellowship of the saints. We give all praise 
and honor to you for the gospel of our salvation. We know it 
wasn't our wisdom or our will, it wasn't our decision that brought 
us here, but it's the sovereign grace of God Almighty. We thank 
you that you make men willing in the day of your power. We 
thank you for effectually calling us unto your dear Son, and for 
the graces of faith and repentance. We thank you for the churches 
that you have blessed us with and we pray that you would continue 
to strengthen your churches. We pray for the church as a whole. 
Here in this nation, we know it is a lawless and a godless 
nation, but we ultimately look to the power of the Christian 
gospel. We know that you are able to save to the uttermost 
all who draw nigh unto the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and we pray that you would bless pulpits in this land, cause them 
to be faithful in proclaiming Christ and him crucified and 
resurrected. May you be pleased to save a 
multitude, and may you continue to strengthen the church, that 
we would be a faithful witness, shining as lights in a crooked 
and perverse generation, and give us that boldness and courage 
to hold forth your word of truth. And as we were encouraged yesterday, 
help us to be students of that truth. Help us to know the scriptures 
so that we are able to testify concerning the Lord Jesus Christ 
who lived, who died, and who was raised again for sinners. 
We ask for your blessing upon this meeting. Bless our singing 
and our hearing and our speaker as he brings your truth to us. And we ask this in Jesus' name, 
amen. We can turn to page 29 in your 
book. Page 29, we'll sing Psalm 138B to a familiar tune. So we'll stand as we sing together. I bring thee for the praise, 
your praise I sing. I worship thee in your holy place, 
and praise you for your truth and grace. For truth and grace 
will ever shine in your most holy work divine. ♪ For most holy, your divine 
♪ ♪ I cry to you and you did say ♪ ♪ Your word of grace new 
courage gave ♪ ♪ The kings of earth shall thank you, Lord ♪ 
♪ For they have heard your wondrous word ♪ Faith it shall come with songs 
of praise, for great and glorious are your ways. For great and 
glorious are your ways. ♪ In glory bright ♪ ♪ You reign 
above, in heav'n behind ♪ ♪ About in vain your favor sing ♪ ♪ But 
you have mercy for the weak ♪ ♪ Through trouble though my pathway lead 
♪ ♪ You will revive and strengthen me ♪ ♪ To revive and strengthen 
me ♪ ♪ Who will stretch forth your mighty arm ♪ ♪ To safely 
wed my foe's alarm ♪ ♪ The work you have for me begun ♪ ♪ Shall 
by your grace be fully done ♪ Your mercy shall forever be. O Lord, my Maker, think on me. O Lord, my Maker, think on me. Amen. Just a reminder after Dr. Barcelos' 
lectures, he'll then pray and that'll be our cue to take our 
break. So Dr. Barcelos. I ran out of ink on my printer 
at home the day I went to print my lectures out, so I had to 
email the documents, excuse me, to Pastor Butler. He handed my 
lectures and the sermons that I'm gonna choose from for tomorrow 
to me, and he handed this manila folder, and I think it was at 
night, didn't kind of register. And then I looked at the, at 
the top you could see some numbers cut off, colors, and I thought, 
where'd he get this thing? So I said, where'd you get that? 
He said, you gave it to me in 1991 or whatever. My wife borrowed them from the 
Department of Water and Power County of Los Angeles in the 
1980s when she worked there. And I had like 300, we got a 
file cabinet full of these. Do I have to give it back to 
you? Okay. It's signed by about 50 guys 
who have used it before but had to give it back to them. Okay, 
my assignment was, and still is, to try to dig into some statements 
in Confession chapter one, the scope of the whole, which is 
to give all glory to God. And so I gave that illustration 
of the bullseye and then the target, and how all the circles, 
concentric circles, that are usually shaded different colors, 
serve to accentuate this black dot, without which it would just 
be a black dot. But with these concentric circles, 
we have a target. With a bullseye, with a center. 
And we have the other aspects of the target serving, somehow, 
some way, but in slightly different ways. the one goal of accentuating 
the dot and turning it into a target, a bull's eye. I say scripture 
functions that way as well. Not every verse is about Jesus, 
but every verse is serving to present either the coming one 
or the one having come. The coming one, the Old Testament, 
the one having come, the New Testament. The other section 
of scripture, confession, oops, The Bible is the written word 
of God, not the confession. The other part of the confession 
that I was assigned was that little statement in chapter one, 
paragraph nine, the only infallible interpretation of scripture is 
the scripture itself. And scripture interprets itself 
in various ways. We looked at Luke 24, I wanna 
turn back there if you have a Bible. We looked at Luke 24 in two passages. Jesus doesn't quote the Old Testament 
there, right? When he chides them for being 
slow of heart and dull of mind, he doesn't quote verses from 
what we call the Old Testament. He alludes to it and he draws 
from the entirety of the law, the prophets, and the writings 
from the entire canon of the Hebrew Old Testament. He draws 
out a conclusion from the basic motif that's in there, but not 
even in the words that's in there. Sufferings and glory, as far 
as I know, aren't in the Old Testament word for word, are 
the concepts embodied in the suffering Messiah and the glorified 
Messiah in the Old Testament, yes, but not in those words. 
So Jesus uses words, sufferings and glory, not in the word to 
describe the word. Kind of like creeds do that, 
right? Creeds often use words not in 
the word to explain the word. Why? Because the heretics were 
using the words that are in the word and putting wrong meanings 
on them. So, Jesus doesn't quote the Old 
Testament there, he does elsewhere. He alludes to it and he draws 
out a theological conclusion that the sum and substance of 
the Old Testament can be reduced to sufferings and glory. So let's go back to Luke 24, 
44 to 49. Before I do that, I have a quiz. 
Subsequent revelation often makes explicit, nope, he took the class. Security, one more out of him. 
And by the way, she gets to sit in the front row one hour. If 
she does well, maybe a second hour. If she doesn't, get her 
out of here. We're important. We have image to uphold. Subsequent 
revelation often makes explicit what is implicit in antecedent 
revelation, okay? And what was the other one? When 
the Bible interprets the Bible, when scripture interprets scripture, 
we have the word of God and the word of God, therefore an infallible 
interpretation. What are the ways that scripture 
interprets scripture? A direct quotation, for instance 
in the New Testament, This, what we're experiencing, is that which 
the prophet said would take place. There's a direct quotation. And 
so this is an infallible interpretation. We're gonna look at Acts 2, where 
Joel 2, at Psalm 16 and Joel 2 are used by Peter. And he says 
this, sufferings and glory, primarily the glory of Christ and Pentecost, 
is that which the prophet said would take place. And he quotes 
the Old Testament. So that's one way scripture interprets 
scripture. Therefore, it's an infallible 
interpretation. We saw another way yesterday, and it's in Luke 
24, that is, Jesus alludes to the Old Testament, calling it 
Law, Prophets, and Writings, and he draws a conclusion from 
it. It is necessary for the Christ to suffer and to enter into his 
glory, or suffer and be raised from the dead on the third day. 
So entering into glory, be raised from the dead on the third day, 
it's in the Old Testament. You know who else taught us that? 
Paul, right? who is raised on the third day according to the 
scripture. So Jesus alludes to the Old Testament 
and interprets it. in one sense, as teaching sufferings 
and glory. It's not a quotation. So there's 
at least two ways it does it. The New Testament will quote 
the Old Testament in fulfillment language. The New Testament will 
allude to the Old, by the way, what's the first verse in the 
New Testament that alludes to the Old Testament? It doesn't 
quote the Old Testament, but if you know the Old Testament, 
you read this verse, you go, that's an allusion. Matthew 1.1, like 
the first verse, The book of the genealogy, there's Old Testament 
stuff, of Joshua, Messiah, Jesus Christ. Is Jesus a new Joshua? Yeah, he's a way better Joshua 
too, isn't he? Does he take the people of God 
into the promised land? Yes, into Emmanuel's land. Is 
he like Joshua? Yes. Is he unlike? Is he greater 
than Joshua? Yes. The son of Abraham, the 
son of David, there's at least five allusions to the Old Testament 
in the first verse of the New Testament. By the way, Augustine, 
let's talk to Augustine. Mr. Augustine, what's the first 
book of the New Testament? The Old Testament. I don't know 
where he said that. Somebody could have made it up. 
I heard it recently. I was telling some guys in my church. I said, 
that's getting in the sermon. it got in the sermon. Jesus is 
teaching us in Luke 24, and primarily in the context there, the apostles 
how to understand our Lord and themselves in relation to the 
Old Testament. That passage in Luke 24, 44 through 
49 reads this way. Then he said to them, these are 
the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that 
all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law 
of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me. Okay, 
so the three parts of the Hebrew Old Testament, law, prophets, 
and writings, law, prophets, and Psalms, each section speaks 
of the Messiah to come. And now, how each section does 
that and where, that's a different question, but we know this much. 
These are red letters. These are important. I'm kind 
of kidding, but I'm kind of not. Who would you rather learn how 
to read the relation of Jesus to the Old Testament from? You 
want to learn it from Cam or Jesus Christ? How many want to 
learn it from Cam over the Lord? Zero, okay? Part of me wants 
to joke with that, but another part wants to say, well, wait 
a minute. The red letter part is the joke, although I like 
it because immediately I know these are the most important 
words in the Bible. I'm kidding. The entirety of the Bible is 
the written word of God. But when you have the incarnate 
son of God teaching his disciples how to interpret himself, explain 
himself in light of the already divine meaning filled Old Testament. And then you read the rest of 
the New Testament, you go, wow, Peter's speaking like Jesus now. Paul sounds like Jesus. Jude 
sounds like Jesus. The apostles followed the Lord's 
hermeneutical method. That's how we got Christianity. And by the way, where was Christianity 
first revealed? in the first book of the New 
Testament, the Old Testament. You know all the sermons in the 
book of Acts? Peter starts quoting Matthew's gospel, and then Mark's 
gospel, and Luke's gospel, and Paul comes on the scene, he's 
quoting John's gospel. They're not quoting the gospels, 
right? What are they quoting, or at least alluding to? Moses, 
the prophets, and the Psalms, the threefold canon of the Hebrew 
Old Testament. And he opened their understanding that they 
might comprehend the scriptures. Stop. Here's one thing I forgot 
to say yesterday, because I was in a hurry. The ontology, the 
quiddity. I used to say quiddity. What 
does that mean, ontology? What does that mean? The whatness 
of the Bible. What is the Bible? The written 
word of God. It was produced by God. It's been preserved by God. And 
if you're gonna understand it properly, it's taught to you 
by God. Okay, there it is. And he opened 
their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures. Then he said to them, thus it 
is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and 
to rise from the dead the third day. You remember the other text 
says, enter his glory. This one says, rise from the 
dead on the third day. What does entering glory mean, 
or when did it happen? When he rose from the dead on 
the third day. All this is in the scriptures of the Old Testament, 
and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in 
his name to all nations, that's in the Old Testament, to the 
Jew first, then to the Greek. It's grounded in what God said, 
had spoken through the prophets. When Messiah would come, there'd 
be a remnant of believers around him, and then the law would go 
out from Jerusalem to the nations of the world. and you are my 
witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the promise of 
my Father upon you, but, Terry, wait in the city of Jerusalem 
until you are endowed with power from on high. Now, if we went 
over to Acts 1, before Peter's sermon, went over to Acts 1, 
we would see that Jesus, after the resurrection, before the 
ascension, what are they doing? He's talking to the disciples 
about the kingdom of God. It's very interesting. At the 
beginning of the book, Jesus is talking to his disciples about 
the kingdom of God. At the end of the book, in Acts 
28, just read the entire chapter. In my notes, I have Acts 28, 
just read it. Because Paul is arguing with 
the Jews about the true identity of Jesus Christ and the kingdom 
of God from the Bible. And so he quotes 2 Thessalonians, 
and Gospel of Mark. He's going toe-to-toe with the 
Jews, preaching Jesus and the present kingdom of God, the kingdom 
that was promised in, the Davidic kingdom, promised in the Old 
Testament. He's doing that based on the scriptures of the Old 
Testament alone. Now he could have had, I don't 
know about the date thing there, because Matthew was written pretty 
early, right, security? Yeah, you get that question wrong. You're out of here. I'll get 
her to take you out. So between the resurrection and 
the ascension, Jesus is doing the same thing. He's teaching 
them about himself and the implications of his sufferings and glory in 
relation to the Old Testament. And the spirit of Christ came 
upon them at Pentecost and gave them, cleaned up their hermeneutical 
lenses, and they were able to see Jesus clearly in the then 
present Old Testament scriptures. So I think realizing that Jesus 
taught hermeneutics to the apostles, when you think about that, you 
go, well, yeah. Because when you hear them preach in Acts, 
especially Peter and Paul, they sound like Jesus. They use the 
twofold sufferings and glory motif. They say it's in all the 
sections of the canonical Old Testament. The sufferings and 
glory of Christ is in the book of Moses. The sufferings and 
glory of Christ is in the Psalms. The suffering in the prophets. 
The sufferings and glory of Christ somehow, someway is in the prophets 
as well. Direct prophecy, yes. Typology, 
yes. Let's see how bold you are. Joseph was a type of Christ. Just think about sufferings and 
glory, mistreatment by family members. I mean, to me, there's 
a lot there. So it kind of opens up the door 
and you wonder, oh, maybe there's more typology going on in the 
Bible. There's more Jesus back there than I ever thought. I 
think there is. We probably feel uncomfortable 
with all the typology that's actually there. Can you overdo 
it? Yes, but you know what? I would rather find Jesus where 
he isn't than miss him where he is and preach the Orthodox 
Christian faith and gospel from the wrong text than preach the 
text wrongly and miss him You know what I mean there. By the 
way, Pastor Butler doesn't always exegete perfectly. He misses 
it sometimes. But he's an Orthodox Christian 
theologian who preaches the Orthodox Christian faith. I get texts 
wrong sometimes. I don't think I get... I hope 
I don't get doctrines wrong very often. And when I do, I scrub 
them clean and tell the people, you know what? That's not Christian 
doctrine. That was made up by me. That 
was idiosyncratic pride coming out of me. Anyway, we have Pentecost 
happening. Let's go to a contemporary theologian, 
see what he says about the relationship, our Lord's understanding of his 
own relationship to the Old Testament. And I'm saying scopus scriptura. He saw himself as the bullseye 
of the Old Testament. By the way, most Christians, 
if you say, what's the New Testament all about? They'll say, Jesus. If we asked our Lord, what's 
the Old Testament all about? He'd say, Jesus, okay? Was the Old Testament, was the 
scope of the scriptures of the Old Testament our Lord before 
our Lord told us he was the scope of the Old Testament? So he's 
not inventing new things, okay. All right, good. Here's Richard 
Gaffin, he's a contemporary. He says, for Jesus and the New 
Testament writers, the Old Testament is one large prophetic and promissory 
witness to Christ, a diverse but unified witness that centers 
in his sufferings and consequent glorification The Old Testament 
has its overall integrity, its various parts cohere in terms 
of this death and resurrection focus. By the way, did ancient 
Israel have any death and resurrection experiences? Aye yi yi, they 
did, more than one, by the way. Put negatively, The Old Testament 
does not have multiple and discordant trajectories of meaning, but 
only one, that is, the unidirectional path that leads to Christ, however 
obscure and difficult it may be for us to follow that path 
at points along the way. I agree with him. Now, probably 
the most often cited words of our Lord to illustrate his view 
of himself in terms of scripture, how he relates to it, occur at 
the end of Luke's gospel. We read the passages yesterday 
and went through one of them briefly this morning. But John's 
gospel contains a severe rebuke by Jesus of some Jewish leaders 
which may illustrate Dr. Gaffin's point above, even better 
than Luke 24. Listen to John 5, 45 to 47. Very familiar words. Do not think 
that I shall accuse you to the Father, Jesus to the Pharisees. There is one who accuses you, 
Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, that 
is what he wrote, right, You would believe me, for he wrote 
about me. But if you do not believe his 
writings, how will you believe my words? Now these words were 
spoken after Jesus had said, you search the scriptures, for 
in them you think you have eternal life. This is verse 39. And these 
are they which testify of me. So that's a more inclusive, broader 
statement in 539, is followed by this more specific statement 
concentrating on the writings of Moses. But what could be said 
of the scriptures, or about Moses, could be said of the scriptures 
as a whole. So he's not denying that the 
other parts of the Hebrew Old Testament fit this category of 
witnessing to him. I think he's assuming it to be 
so. Now these texts indicate not 
only that Jesus viewed the Old Testament as a witness to himself, 
viewed himself as a scope of the Old Testament, but that it 
functioned this way apart from his own self-witness. Think about that. Before Jesus 
tells us Jesus Christ is the scope of the Old Testament, he 
was the scope of the Old Testament. It doesn't take the self-witness 
of the incarnate son of God to tell us that he's the scope of 
the Old Testament for him to become something he wasn't already. We don't have to rely on Jesus 
telling us the things that he does in the gospel to conclude 
the Old Testament all along had been about Jesus. Now it helps 
us, all right, it helps us to do that, but apart from his self-witness, 
the Old Testament was a messianic document written by a team of 
messianic believing scholars, the prophets, who studied their 
own documents, by the way, to engender a messianic hope which 
created believers in the Messiah to come. You remember 2 Timothy 
3 15? I remember it, but I can't cite 
it, so I need to find it in my notes. That's a very important 
verse. And if I can find it here. Here it is, and that from childhood, 
this is Paul to Timothy, you have known the Holy Scriptures, 
what do you think he's referring to? Most likely the Old Testament, 
which are, the Old Testament, apart from the self-witness of 
Christ and the apostles and the New Testament, which are, that 
is, the Holy Scriptures, the Old Testament, are able to make 
you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 
Remember Simeon? I've seen the Lord's salvation, 
I can die now. He didn't read the New Testament. He didn't 
have to hear the oral self-witness of the Lord Jesus in terms of 
his relationship to the extant scriptures of the Old Testament. 
The Jesus was an infant, and he connects the incarnation with 
revelation that's already been given. He doesn't say, now that 
Jesus is here, whole new meanings nobody knew ever before from 
the Old Testament are gonna become vogue. Now we can really read 
Jesus into the Old Testament because he's here and he was 
never in the Old Testament in the first place. But now that 
he came, we can go shove him in there. We can find him in 
places he wasn't. You're listening. Find him in places nobody ever 
would have thought he's there. You know, we can pull rabbits 
out of our hats. That's not the way the New Testament reads the 
Old Testament. That's not the way Jesus read 
the Old Testament. Oh, by the way, we're gonna put new meanings 
on old texts. And the old meanings of the old texts, they'll come 
true, but they're not gonna come true until, sorry, the millennium. That's one view of all that. 
So these are important things. Apart from his own self-witness, 
the scope of the Old Testament was the incarnate son of God 
to come in his sufferings and glory. So in other words, the Old Testament 
was a messianic document apart from the Messiah's earthly testimony 
that it was so. Here's that gaffing man again. 
Here Jesus affirms the relative overall clarity and independence 
of Moses, the Old Testament, as a witness to himself distinct 
from his own teaching and so by implication of the New Testament. 
So much is the case that this Old Testament witness to Christ 
serves as an adequate basis for the just condemnation of those 
rejecting him, John 545. In itself, an independent of 
his own self witness. That's, I think he's right. And 
I think that's massive to think about. A, is that how you do 
it? Some of you were falling asleep. 
It was very discouraging, so I threw the A in there to wake 
you up. Isn't that, that's huge, think 
about that. Apart from the self-witness of the incarnate Son of God, 
the Old Testament is about the incarnate Son of God to come. 
How so? Well, it reveals his sufferings 
and his glory. Where does it do that? It does 
that in the law, it does that in the prophets' writings, it 
does that in the prophets. In what ways does it do that? 
Well, direct prophecy sometimes. There are typological people, 
typological events, typological persons, events, institutions, 
and places. Where is the first typological 
place? The garden. It's a type of temple. It's a type of, it's a land that's 
typological of, it's Adam the first land, but it's typological 
of Emmanuel's land, ultimately. So, I'll assume that readers 
agree that Jesus viewed himself as the scope of scripture. Let's 
go to the apostles. the apostles on Christ as scope of scripture. Now Luke 24 is probably the most 
comprehensive statement from Jesus in the Gospels concerning 
his understanding of the Old Testament and his relation to 
it. Jesus' audience was very important there, two unnamed 
disciples and then the 11 and probably others with them as 
well. He told him to stay in Jerusalem. We're going to get 
to the apostles. But he told him to stay in Jerusalem. 
Upper room, you guys are in the upper room at Free Grace Baptist 
Church. Upper room, Jesus gives those 
promises. I'll not leave you as orphans. 
I'll send the spirit. I think we have a tendency to 
rip those passages out of the redemptive historical context 
and try to make them fit me personally. Like, I'm gonna cause you to 
recall all that I taught you. Oh, Lord, please help me to remember 
all that you've taught me. I don't think that's what it 
means, primarily. I'm gonna, the Spirit is gonna do that. 
The Spirit will also lead you into all truth. Lord, lead me 
into all truth. And tell you what's gonna happen 
in the future. Lord, please tell me what's gonna 
happen in the future. No can he do. Does Scottish people 
say that? I had a Scottish friend that 
used to say that. No can he do. What that means is Jesus is giving 
the promise of the coming spirit. and by implication, the promise 
of the New Testament documents. He's going to cause the disciples 
to remember what he taught them, lead them into the implications 
of his sufferings and glory, and tell them about the future. 
I think that's a promise of the New Testament. But that doesn't 
happen until the endowment comes, until Pentecost happens. So what 
happens is you go from Peter before Pentecost to Peter after 
Pentecost. We usually like Peter before 
Pentecost, in one sense, better because we say dumb things. You 
say dumb things. I don't. You say dumb things 
quite often, especially some of you. Before Pentecost, he's one thing. 
After Pentecost, he's another. The preachers like him after 
Pentecost, in one sense. The difference is Pentecost. 
God promised to endow their cranial apparatuses with the ability 
to interpret scripture unlike they were, at least consistently, 
before the glory of Christ, and interpret scripture not only 
unlike they were, but like their Lord. We see this in Peter first 
in Acts chapter two. Speaking of Peter, let me remind you of our brother 
Peter prior to the resurrection in Pentecost. I'm gonna end up 
in Acts 2, 14 to 36. But let's go back to Matthew 
16. Just think for a little bit, okay? So this is Peter pre-Pentecost. Then we have Peter Pentecostal 
sermon. He said to them, who do you say 
that I am? Remember the answer, Simon Peter 
answered and said, you are the Christ, the son of the living 
God. One of the books Pastor Butler and I read together, I 
think it was John Bear, didn't he go to this verse and say this 
is the foundation for the next two or 400 years of Christian 
thought. What does this mean? You are 
the Christ, the son of the living God. Orthodox Christological 
confession, Yes, a wonderfully orthodox Christological confession. Jesus answered and said to him, 
blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed 
this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, produced by God, 
preserved by God, taught by God. Here's a taught by God text. 
Orthodox confessions of Christ are caused by God's internal 
work of producing them. Now watch what happens. Then 
he commanded his disciples that they should tell no one that 
he was Jesus the Christ. From that time, Jesus began to 
show to his disciples that he must, where's he show, show, 
he's showing them, what is he, was he like going, watch how 
I'm walking. I'm showing you how I'm gonna 
go to Jerusalem. What was the point from which he was showing? 
What is that from which he was showing? I think it's showing 
them from the scriptures. That he must go to Jerusalem 
and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and 
scribes and be killed and be raised the third day. By the 
way, be raised. That means a resurrecting agent 
other than the incarnate son of God, at least according to 
his human nature, is going to resurrect him. Elsewhere he says, 
destroy this temple and I will raise it up. Then there's the 
resurrecting agent is the second person of the Trinity incarnate, 
but according to his divine nature. Wow, inseparable operations. 
That's for next year. Then, but I didn't get invited 
for next year, so I needed to throw that in there. That was 
free. You can get some of your money 
back for that. Then Peter took him aside. This 
is Peter. before Pentecost, right? Peter 
took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, thou art the Christ, 
the Son of the living God. Now he's gonna rebuke the incarnate 
Son of God. Something's wrong here. Far be it from you, Lord, 
this shall not happen to you. But he turned and said to Peter, 
get behind me, Satan. You're an offense to me, for 
you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. You know that passage really 
well. Orthodox Christological confession rebukes the Lord and 
it gets called Satan, all in one passage. You don't find that 
after Pentecost. You see, you know, the disciples 
were connecting the dots with Jesus and the Old Testament during 
his earthly ministry. But sometimes the disciples who 
are writing, Matthew in this case, show us that they got it 
wrong sometimes. They didn't always get it right. 
I think Martha, or one of the ladies in the gospel, John has 
a wonderful confession, then five verses later tries to undo 
it. I remember reading Ryley says, 
we must be careful, especially with newer disciples, they haven't 
figured it all out yet. I think all of us. I haven't 
figured it all, none of us have figured it all out. But once 
you get to Acts, it's way different. Peter's preaching sufferings 
and glory. He's saying this, the events 
we've witnessed is that which the prophet said would take place, 
and he's doing even more than Jesus did. He's actually quoting, 
citing Old Testament texts. Psalm 16, Joel 2 in the Acts 
2 text. Now I'm not gonna read the entire 
passage for you in Acts chapter two. I'll just assume you know 
what I'm talking about. Just make some observations first. 
Peter is interpreting the Old Testament in light of the then 
current events, the sufferings and glory of our Lord and Pentecost. He basically says this, remember 
I said keep that in your head, this is that. This, what you 
now see, is that which the prophet Joel prophesied. He cites Joel 
2, 28 and 29, your young men and your daughters shall prophesy 
and all that. Second, take special note of 
verse 17. Verse 17 is very important. Prior 
to quoting Joel 2, he puts the words of Joel in a wider Old 
Testament context indicated by these words, and it shall come 
to pass in the last or latter days says God. Then he quotes 
Joel. But it sounds like the whole 
thing's Joel. It's not all Joel. It's Joel 
and Peter's reduction of a certain strand of teaching from the Old 
Testament that puts Joel in the context of fulfillment in what 
he calls the latter days. Did Peter make that statement 
up? No, where is it? If you go backwards into the 
Old Testament, it's in Micah. latter days, Micah basically 
is, it's Micah, right? I think it's Micah, 6-1. It's 
in one of the prophets. And he's going back to Isaiah 
because it's in Isaiah 2-2. It's almost a direct quotation. 
A prophet's quoting a prophet. You think the prophets read the 
prophets? You think the prophets reading the prophets, searching 
carefully, 1 Peter 1-10, You think the prophets read the prophets 
and profited from reading the prophets, and it enhanced their 
minds once it was time for them to produce a prophetic oracle? Probably, I think so. If I ever 
get back to the notes. I'm gonna quote John Gill, who 
says that, and I think for good reason. So he's gonna quote Joel, 
too, and before he quotes it, he puts the reader's minds He 
wants them to be reminded, oh, by the way, the latter days of 
the Old Testament have been inaugurated. We can go behind Isaiah because 
it didn't start with Isaiah. Guess where it started? We had 
this conversation. Genesis 49.10, the Shiloh prophecy 
has the phrase latter days in it. When the scepter shall not, 
you know what I mean. Some is gonna come up from Judah 
and it's gonna have authority over the peoples in the latter 
days, that's where it starts. It was a Balaam oracle, right? 
We don't like those, because they're weird. It's just like, 
what's going on there? But if you put all, by the way, 
Lion of the tribe of Judah, does it come from the same passage? 
I think it does. So, Jewel, to, in its fulfillment, 
is first put in a wider Old Testament context of the latter days. From the Old Testament perspective, 
the latter days are in the future. From the New Testament's perspective, 
they were inaugurated by the sufferings and glory of Christ. 
Hebrews 1.1, in the former days, God spoke to us in many ways 
through the prophets, but now in these latter or last days, 
he has spoken to us in his sons, in his son. So we are in the 
latter days. Latter day glory is being experienced 
right here. The latter day, the last day 
started at the entrance of the son of God into glory. So that's 
interesting how Peter's doing that. Peter's gonna preach the 
fulfillment of Joel 2.28, he's gonna cite the text to a Jewish 
audience. Before he does that, he's basically 
putting it in a wider Old Testament context. He's setting up the 
readers to understand Joel 2.28, not merely in the context of 
the book of Joel. OK, so he's saying, hey, I'm 
going to go back to Joel, but we're going to open up our interpretive 
wide lens and realize that Joel was actually speaking of the 
inaugurated latter days, days in which we live. Matter of fact, 
he's going to say it in Acts 3. And all the prophets from 
the beginning of the world have prophesied these days, these 
latter days. Third observation, the Bible 
itself in Peter's sermon in Acts 2 cites itself, then contains 
an explanation of a citation, utilizing words not in the citation 
to explain the citation. Repeat that please. I shouldn't have read this third 
one, because I'm running out of time. What time do I end, 
at 9.20, 9.30, 9.50? OK. Let me say this again. The Bible 
itself, in Peter's sermon in Acts 2, cites itself, so scripture 
is citing scripture. Luke's writing what Peter said, 
and it becomes scripture. Peter's gonna cite the Old Testament, 
Psalm 16, and then after he cites Psalm 16, eight through 11, he's 
gonna explain aspects of Psalm 16, eight through 11, with words 
not contained in Psalm 16, eight through 11. So let me say this 
sentence again. The Bible itself, in Peter's 
sermon in Acts 2, cites itself then contains an explanation 
of a citation, Psalm 16, eight through 11, utilizing words not 
in the citation to explain the citation. The words not in the 
citation used to explain the citation are Christ and resurrection. Now if you read Psalm 16, concepts 
of the Messiah, the concept of a Messiah and the concept of 
resurrection is in there, but not the very words. So is it 
okay for your pastor to get up in the morning and to explain 
the Bible by using words that aren't in the word to explain 
it? Peter did it. Otherwise, all we could do is 
just get up and say, my sermon this morning is the reading of 
Genesis 1 through chapter 11. Stand up for the reading and 
preaching of the word of God. And all you could do is just 
read it verbatim. Some of you are going, really, that'd be 
great. I don't always like my pastor's preaching. I don't, 
you know who my pastor is? Me, and your pastor's you. Do 
you always like your pastor's preaching? Of course not. Do 
you ever finish a sermon and you just wanna go hide in a closet? 
But you walk around, right? Hi brother, sister, good to see 
you. And in your heart you're going, that stunk. And you get an appointment with 
your pastor. and it quite often becomes your 
wife, right? So here's Peter doing what Jesus 
did, basically, in Acts 2. This is that. But Peter's slightly 
different. He quotes Psalm 16. He quotes, 
Jesus quotes the Old Testament elsewhere, but we didn't look 
at those. We just looked at him alluding to the Old Testament 
as finding Christ himself as its scope, right? John 5, Luke 
24, two times. But Peter goes wider and he's 
referencing two particular passages. And both passages, by the way, 
are put in context. I looked at the latter day statement at verse 17, putting 
Joel 2 in context, but if you go up from there, he's actually 
putting Psalm 16 in context as well. He puts it, Psalm 16, Peter 
puts Psalm 16, puts its human author, David, in a broader Old 
Testament context. Listen to these words. Peter 
says, being a prophet, this is after he quotes Psalm 16. David 
was the human author. Being a prophet, here's a quiz, 
was David a prophet? And the answer is, yes, I had 
a friend from a certain institution with a certain really strong 
view of eschatology and hermeneutics, denied David as a prophet. And 
I said, Peter, the written word of God says he's a prophet. And 
he said, well, that's not what it means, or something like that. 
And knowing, now watch what David knew. Knowing that God had sworn 
with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according 
to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne. Did David know that God had promised 
to raise up the Christ from the dead to sit on David's throne 
someday in the future? True or false? True, yeah. True 
or false? Twitter, if you know. You know, 
some people get mad at my true and falses on Twitter. True or 
false, Barcello should stop true or falsing on Twitter. It's like, 
you get mad? It's just Twitter. I'm trying 
to get you to think. True or false questions can actually 
get you to think a little. True or false, some of you need 
to think a little more. So when Peter says this, these 
words that I just quoted, he's alluding to 2 Samuel 7, 2 Samuel 
23, and Psalm 89 at least. Okay, the preachers are going, 
yep. These texts promise a son to 
David who will build Yahweh's temple and rule from his throne. Peter is interpreting this great 
event in light of the Old Testament, not casting new meanings on old 
texts, but drawing out what was always in those texts. Who taught 
him how to do that? No, not you, Isaac. Jesus. How about Acts 3? We're not gonna do Acts 3. Take 
a break or go to 9.30, Jim. Okay. He does the same thing 
in Acts 3, and we'll get there after the break. I'm going to 
pray. We thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to think through 
these issues. I ask that you give us clarity. 
We know that the word of God is produced by God, preserved 
by God, and has to be taught by God. That inner work of the 
truth taken by the spirit and brought home with power and clarity 
to our minds, that has to happen or else this morning has been 
in vain. Do that invisible work in our 
hearts, we ask your blessings. In Jesus' name, amen.