Here’s a link to a CT article I was exposed to in a church history class in seminary a few years ago. It’s extremely relevant to our study of Hebrews which employs a robust gospel-centered reading of the Old Testament. I cited Irenaeus from this article a couple weeks ago, who said, about the whole of the Bible, in the second century: “If anyone reads the Scripture carefully, they will find some word, some hidden treasure in the field, which is Christ.” Enjoy it!
http://www.ctlibrary.com/print.html?id=7827
Chris
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
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2 comments:
This was a great article. I thought it was very cool how the author talked about the Holy Spirit had a history. I also had a few questions.
What was this "Rule of Faith"?
Do we have this document?
Was it a Creed? I hadn't heard of this before but it sounds like something pretty important to the early church.
I'm looking forward to discussind this more.
Hey Spence,
Great questions. As far as I know (though I could certainly be wrong on this), the analogy of faith is a document referenced in some of Tertullian's writings (and Irenaeus's?), but we don't know exactly what it said today, other than it was likely a Christian creed of some sort--hitting on the basics of the faith (incarnation, atonement, resurrection, etc.)--that was easy to memorize, sing, and encourage other believers with. Some people thing 1 Cor 15:3-6 was an early Christian creed, so maybe it mirrored that in some ways?
The big point for the article in bringing this up was to show how much the early church fathers used the Rule of Faith (i.e., the gospel) to interpret all Scripture, Old Testament included. They read the gospel back into the story that preceded it, so that it could be maintained that, in Christ, God brought in "the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph 1:10).
Hope that helps!
Chris
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