Introduction
When you read the Psalms, whose voice are you hearing? Long before Bethlehem, the biblical writers recorded words spoken by one person of the Godhead to another, and the New Testament teaches us to read them that way. Prosopological exegesis is the practice of listening for those conversations, and it changes how we come to the Old Testament. In this episode, Pastor Jim Butler, Dr. Richard Barcellos, and Pastor David Charles walk through Hebrews 1 to show how the Father addresses the Son in Psalms 2, 45, and 102, and why it matters. It lets us see Christ where the Scriptures intend, and it assures us that the Son is fully God, the same yesterday, today, and forever.
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Transcript
Keywords: prosopological exegesis, Christological interpretation, the Trinity, Hebrews 1, the Psalms, Old Testament prophecy, the Incarnation, biblical hermeneutics, the divinity of the Messiah, the analogy of faith
Speakers: Pastor Jim Butler, Dr. Richard Barcellos, Pastor David Charles
Reading the Old Testament through the New
Pastor Jim Butler: This one is for David first, and then Rich can speak to it as well. What is prosopological exegesis, and why does it matter for reading the Old Testament Christologically?
Pastor David Charles: I think we gain a view of that by reading the New Testament and understanding how the New Testament makes use of the Old Testament. By that term, we are seeing into the inner-Trinitarian life, going back to the covenant of redemption, where they are speaking to one another about the redemption that is going to take place. What was the second part of that?
Pastor Jim Butler: Why does it matter for reading the Old Testament Christologically?
Pastor David Charles: Without it we flatten the Old Testament revelation. We go back to having blinders on, where Paul in 2 Corinthians 3 speaks of a veil over their eyes. Without recognizing that, we do not get to Christ as the Scriptures have meant for us to get to Christ. And once you see it, it is one of those things you cannot unsee. This is how the apostles, and Jesus through the apostles, taught us to interpret Scripture.
A window into the Father and the Son
Pastor Jim Butler: Yes. It is a window for us to see the glory of the triune God. When the author of Hebrews says, “He says to the Son,” and then quotes a Psalm, and then we listen to Psalm 110, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand,” or Psalm 2, “Ask of me and I will give you the nations,” it is a window for us to see the relation between the Father and the Son. It also helps us make heads or tails of these conversations that are taking place, ones that are not David’s.
Pastor David Charles: You just quoted Psalm 40 in Hebrews. Unashamed.
Pastor Jim Butler: Unashamed.
Pastor David Charles: When he comes into the world, he says something. So right there, infant Jesus, we are to understand, is the one who was in Psalm 40.
Pastor Jim Butler: In Hebrews 2, he is talking about Jesus, and then he quotes Psalm 22. That helps us, when we read the Psalms, to see that they really are about Jesus. He is the subject. He is the author.
Pastor David Charles: And Jesus as the Son of God. The eternal relations come through when we recognize that.
Pastor Jim Butler: That is the lens you get.
Prosopon: the person behind the words
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Can you turn to Hebrews 1? Can we go back to the terminology?
Pastor Jim Butler: Prosopological. And maybe mention the Matthew Bates book, and then I will have something to say.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Prosopological. Prosopon.
Pastor David Charles: Person.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Person. Logical: words about, or words spoken by, a person. Literally it means this: words spoken by a person of the Godhead to another person in the Godhead, through either an apostle or, in this case in the Old Testament, through the writer of Scripture.
Walking through Hebrews 1
Dr. Richard Barcellos: In Hebrews 1: “For to which of the angels did God ever say,” and then he quotes Psalm 2. And then verse 6, “when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says.” Psalm 8, verse 8, “but of the Son he says,” now watch this, “your throne, O God.” What is that? Psalm 45. And then verse 10, “You, Lord,” referring to Yahweh. So he says “of the Son,” or as the New King James has it, “to the Son.” And that is Psalm 102:25-27.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: So you go back, and who is our favorite on the Psalms? Pierce. You go back and read Pierce. The prophet of Christ, prior to the incarnation of Christ, is personifying the Father speaking to the Son about the Son prior to the incarnation. So then we can say the apostle of Christ is speaking about the Father speaking to the Son in Psalm 102. And the Son, according to Paul, is Yahweh. But read the context, and the last reference to him is Elohim. So if you put it all together, how is the Son in his pre-incarnate state both Elohim and Yahweh? He is. The prophet before the Incarnation identifies the Son as Elohim and Yahweh. And the apostle, after the incarnation of the Son, identifies him as Elohim and Yahweh, at least Yahweh, and Elohim too. Therefore, whatever the Incarnation entails, it cannot entail a diminishment of Yahweh-ness and Elohim-ness in the Son. Whatever he was prior to the Incarnation, he has to be once the Incarnation comes, because he does not change. The same yesterday, today, and forever, which is Hebrews 13:8. I think that is an echo of Psalm 102 as well.
Did the Old Testament expect a divine Messiah?
Pastor Jim Butler: Do you remember, years ago, before Dennis Prager got really big, he did a radio show in LA, and he had Greg Bahnsen, a Jewish rabbi, and a Catholic priest on? It was really good.
Pastor David Charles: That sounds like the setup for a joke.
Pastor Jim Butler: They walked into a bar. Prager asked, what is the non-negotiable, fundamental element of your faith? In other words, you have to embrace this one thing, or you cannot be considered a Jew, a Catholic, or a Protestant. Bahnsen did really well. He cited Romans 5:8. One of the things that came up was a caller who said there was no Jewish expectation for a divine Messiah. That is patently false. Bahnsen did a good job. He pointed to Isaiah 9 and cited a few texts. I have often thought this: the modern idea that the Messianic expectation was for a merely unique man, you did not get that from the Old Testament. You get “eternal Father” from the Old Testament. You get one seated at the right hand of Yahweh from the Old Testament.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: And what is Micah 5:2?
Pastor Jim Butler: “From everlasting, his goings forth are from ancient days.”
Dr. Richard Barcellos: That is an interesting one. Have you ever heard James Dolezal lecture on that text? His Trinity classes.
“The Lord said to my Lord”
Pastor David Charles: Even our Lord Jesus, when he is dealing with the Jewish leaders of his day, would assume that they would understand how it was that David says, “The Lord said to my Lord.”
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Exactly. And that is not Jesus reinterpreting or casting new meanings. The prophets of Christ knew about the sufferings and glory of the incarnate Son. They did not know all the details. They could not explain it the way we can. If they had lived during the ministry of our Lord and the apostles, they would have said, “This is what I wrote about. This is better than I thought. This is much better.”
How the prophets searched their own writings
Pastor David Charles: That is exactly what Peter says in 1 Peter, talking about the prophets. They prophesied of the grace that would come to you, making careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. So the prophets knew.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: Have you ever read Gill on that? It is really good. John Brown, Gill, and Matthew Poole are three of the most helpful. Gill notes the word for careful searching and inquiring: every time it is used in the Septuagint in relation to a person searching for something, the object they are searching is the law, the written word of God. So Gill makes the observation, how were they doing this? By prayer, by considering their own writings, by considering the writings of Moses, by considering the types and prophecies in other writings. They are doing the analogy of faith. And they are realizing, we are not just ministering to our own generation, we are ministering to a generation to come.
Dr. Richard Barcellos: I just lectured last week on hermeneutics, and we finished with this passage. Things were dark and obscure. John Brown says things remained dark and obscure until either the fulfillment of that to which it pointed comes, or a further explication. With the Incarnation, sufferings, and glory of Christ, and the New Testament, we have both. We have the fulfillment and a divine interpretation of the redemptive-historical act of the Incarnation, sufferings, and glory of our Lord. Which is, by the way, the reason we have a Bible: to tell us there is an Incarnation, sufferings, and glory of our Lord coming, or that it has come.
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