Peter Jensen's Theology compared to SDA

 

by koot van wyk Seoul South Korea November 30 2008

 

Modern Reformed scholars are encouraged by the approach of Peter Jensen to theology so that  a consideration of his method is probably not out of place. Dr. Jensen is Archbishop of the  Diocese of Sydney, Australia, and former principal of Moore Theological College, Sydney,

 

The source for this writing is the article by James Myers, "Theologia Evangelii: Peter  Jensen?s Theological Method" [available online].

 

In his book P. F. Jensen, The Revelation of God (Leicester: IVP, 2002), Jensen is trying to  create his own theological method in the chapter entitled "A theology of the gospel".

 

This 2002 approach of Jensen provides the banner under which Jensen is operating in his  thinking.

 

1. Other christologies talked about:

a. theologia crucis (theology of the cross)

b. theologia Verbi (theology of the Word)

c. theologia spei (theology of Hope)

d. theologia evangelii (theology of the gospel, the position of Jensen) (see Benjamin Myers  in "Theologia Evangelii: Peter Jensen's Theological Method" online).

 

It is known that scholars tend to think the startingpoint of eschatology as from the cross in 31 CE. Peter Jensen rethought the role of eschatology in 1991 in his book P. F. Jensen,  At the Heart of the Universe (Homebush West, NSW: Lancer, 1991). Jensen also emphasize the  importance of the Cross and especially the death of Christ in 31 CE as overshadowing the resurrection and ascension in

 

2. Whereas eschatology was the most important for Jensen in theology in 1991, in 2002 it is  the gospel that is the most important in theology (Myers footnote 7).

In 1985 Jensen already had in mind the centrality of the gospel for worship as he outlined  in Jensen "Prayer in Reformed Perspective," Reformed Theological Review 44:3 (1985):70, where he argues that a theology of prayer should "be shaped by the concerns of the Gospel" (cited by Myers foonote 13). Seventh Day Adventists refrain from "checklists of must and must nots" in their prayer and leaves it freely to the individual to prioritize his own concerns for prayer informally. That does not mean that the centrality of Christ for the individual is not part of the prayer. These aspects are not 'built in" to a formulation to be strictly followed so as to make sure there is a 'theology of prayer focus on gospel'in liturgy. SDA's tend not to "pre-construct" the prayer of the one who is to pray with "mandatory bags".

 

3. In 1967 J. Moltmann said: "From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue,  Christianity is eschatology, is hope. The eschatological is not one element of  Christianity, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything  in it is set, the glow that suffuses everything here in the dawn of an expected new day": J. Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and Implications of a Christian Eschatology, trans. J. W. Leitch (London: SCM, 1967): 16. That does not make Moltmann an ideal eschatology nor theologian for rearranging one's ideas about theology. But, the emphasis is on eschatology and in 1991 Jensen was also emphasizing the theologia spei or theology of  hope similar to Moltmann in his book, At the Heart of the Universe.

 

4. Scholars who worked with an eschatological theology before Moltmann were Weiss and  Schweitzer.

 

5. In 1991 similar to Moltmann, Jensen said: "Jesus Christ, the essence of the future  consummation" (Myers footnote 8). He summarized his own method in 1991 by saying "My method has been to follow Jesus Christ in his future, his past and his present in the context of Gods purposes for the world" (Myers footnote 9).

 

6. One may see in the last summarizing statement a "Christological Eschatology". At this point it is suffice to add that for Seventh Day Adventists in their writings, a  Christological Eschatology is a very important aspect of their theology as well. The origin of Christological Eschatology in Adventism is connected since their inception in 1844 with the discovery of the Sanctuary Message of the Old Testament connected to the work of Christ in the New Testament before from the cross and since 1844 in the Most Holy. It will be wrong to say that it only started in 1888 or were brought in after 1957 as a result of Question on Doctrines. Neither was it brought as a result of the efforts of Brinsmead, Ford or Paxton. 

 

7. Christological Messiah concepts in the Old Testament were especially the approach of E. W.  von Hengstenberg between 1829 to 1835 (three volume set) and between 1854 to 1858 (a second  edition in four volumes). He considered the Old Testament predictions of the Messiah through the tool of the New Testament and through the meaning of Christ. His book was reprinted in 1970 by Kregel in Grand Rapids with the title Christology of the Old Testament and a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions.

 

8. For liberal scholars and Jewish scholars Hengstenberg is a thorn in the flesh. Denying the Messiahship of Jesus it is natural for Jewish scholars to refuse Jesus a place in the Old Testament. Seventh Day Adventists, following a fundamental and biblicist literal reading where demanded of the two testaments, also follows an approach close to that of Hengstenberg. As Walther Kaiser said, Hengstenberg had "no impact on the nonconservative world of scholars" (Walther Kaiser, The Messiah in the Old Testament [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995], 21). Liberal sympathetic scholars favor the disjunctive approach to the Old Testament with regard to the Christological Messiah : Y. Kaufmann, F. Delitzsch, J. Herder, J. Eichorn, G. Baur, A. Bentzen, J. L. MacKenzie, F. Baumgartel, R. Bultmann, A. von Harnack, E. Rheim, C. A. Briggs, E. Kautzsch, G. A. Smith. 

 

9. In her doctoral dissertation completed at Andrews University, "The Warrior Messiah Motif in Scripture and Intertestamental writings" 2008: 410, my wife Sookyoung Kim listed the New Testament approaches to the Old Testament Messiah of some scholars:

a. Hengstenberg (1835-1858)

b. A. Edersheim Prophecy and History in Relation to the Messiah

c. W. H. Thomson, Christ in the OT: The Great Argument

d. Karl Barth

e. Emil Brunner

f. A. T. Hanson, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament

g. W. Vischer, The Witness of the Old Testament Christ (1949). For Vischer the Old Testament  is a pre-writing of the New Testament. He maintained that Jesus is the hidden meaning of the  Old Testament (S. Kim 2008: 412). Van Groningen complained that he did not outline the  historical setting well enough.

h. R. Campbell (1954).

i. Although Walther Kaiser is sympathetic with these New Testament focus scholars, he  developed his own approach to the Messiah which may be termed the "Epigenetical Meaning of  Kaiser" (S. Kim 2008: 417). It means that God built into the Messianic announcements of the  Old Testament "extras" that were applied only for the immediate context of those days. It is  almost like God wrapped His gift in two or three wrapping papers of which one is definitely  New Testament and Christ and others are for the time of David or the Exile etc.

 

10. Works that considered the prophesied Messiah of the OT prophecies as Jesus Christ is  listed by Paton J. Cloag: Chandler, Sherlock, Hurd, Kidder.

 

11. For Seventh Day Adventists, it is natural for their theology to be Christological as is also clear in the works of Ellen G. White. Your spiritual Seventh Day Adventist will be a Christological Eschatological theologian for both the Old and New Testaments following the pioneers, Ellen White, and theologians of the seminary and theological colleges. The cultural Adventist will take on liberal approaches that tries to disintegrate the relationship of worshippers in the Seventh Day Adventist church with Ellen White and with their fundamental or biblicistic views of the Bible by dissecting the Old from the New Testament.

 

12. In his 2002 work, Peter Jensen still followed the strong role of eschatology in the role of the gospel in Theology (Jensen 2002: 49-53, 60, 75; cited by Myers footnote 10). It is summarized by Myers in the following way:

"Peter Jensens central thesis is that God has revealed himself definitively in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? and that this evangelical revelation should be determinative of both the content and the method of theology. Theology must start with, and then proceed to build on, the gospel. Thus the doctrine of revelation cannot begin with any a priori concept of revelation which is then applied to the particular instance of Christian revelation. Rather, we are faced at the very outset with the concrete givenness of the gospel. The gospel is the message that Jesus Christ is Lord; through this message we have come to know God. Since this is Gods way of revealing himself, we must proceed a posteriori from the gospel to a general understanding of revelation" (Myers 27).

 

13. The gospel and eschatology is connected in the Theology of Jensen. Getting connected to God through the gospel one moves on to get to know eschatology since gospel is effective in eschatology.

 

14. Seventh Day Adventists can relate in some way to Jensen's concerned with exceptions, but positively that the gospel is from the Fall of Man in the garden of Eden and will extend to the Eschaton. Eschatological hope and outlines of historical periodization in eschatology was from the Fall to the Second Advent and understanding the one properly requires a proper understanding of the other.

 

15. For Jensen and also for SDA's the content of Theology is gospel and eschatology.

 

16. Gerhard Hasel once verbally suggested to me that the center of the Old Testament is God. In my own thinking along similar lines I would think that it is more the "Christ-to-come- God of the Old Testament". Ellen White had no problem in saying that it was Christ who was with Daniel's friends in the oven in Daniel or who visited Abraham in Genesis 18. Christ  means Messiah and another formulation will read: "Messiah-to-come-God" of the Old Testament.

In my own thinking I have no problem in calling Yahweh of the Old Testament Jesus Christ or vice versa. A number of texts in the New Testament actually implies that one of which  Hebrews 11 says that Moses knew Christ. 

 

17. The Anglican tradition of Calvinism also took notice of Jenson. There are three  theologians after Barth that John Webster of Aberdeen discusses: Jungel, Jenson and Gunton.

John Webster, 'Systematic Theology after Barth: Jungel, Jenson and Gunton', in D. Ford, ed., The Modern Theologians. An Introduction to Christian Theology since 1918 (3 rd edition; Oxford: Blackwell, 2005): 249-64. Webster himself seems to be influenced by the works of K. Barth and Eberhard Jungel.

 

18. Jensen has these two poles in his theology: gospel and eschatology and he is willing to bring either out with primary importance since both are important to him. This willingness to emphasize either the gospel at times or eschatology at other times is also a characteristic of Adventism. In Adventism the relationship is probably more reciprocal.

 

19. Oto Weber suggested that theology "has always been theology of the Gospel" (O. Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics, trans. D. L. Guder, 2 vols. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981-83],  2:315).

 

20. Karl Barth has suggested that God is known in the self-revelation of Jesus Christ and in saying this, he puts the gospel first. Correctly Barth defines the object of Theology not only as God but as "the God of the Gospel" (K. Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, trans. G. Foley [London: Collins, 1963], pp. 9-18). The following scholars have all concurred with Barth: Otto Weber, G. C. Berkouwer, Hendrikus Berkhof, Helmut Thielicke, and T. F. Torrance. In Adventism this is a part of their theology. What Barth, Weber, Berkhouwer, Berkhof, Thielicke and Torrance lacks, is a proper understanding of the maximalist view of the content of the gospel (as outlined in the book of Hebrews). They do have a minimalist view of that gospel but not a maximal one of the ongoing atonement process of Christ as mediator in the first apartment and since 1844 (one the basis of Daniel 8:14 with the year  day principle applied) in the Most Holy before He will conclude and appear at the Second  Advent.

 

21. Peter Forsyth is a scholar that is freely cited by the SDA Systematic Theologian Edward Heppenstall in Our High Priest, Jesus Christ in the Heavenly Sanctuary (1972) and also by the Systematic Theologian Eric Claude Webster in his Crosscurrents in Adventist Christology (1984). Forsyth also put the gospel first when he says: the gospel of Gods historic grace is the infallible power and authority over both church and Bible" (P. T. Forsyth, The Gospel and Authority [Minneapolis:  Augsburg, 1971], 17).

 

22. Ernst Kasemann also called for a gospel-centered theology when he says that Scripture is  authoritative "because and in so far as in the Scripture we encounter the Gospel", since "[t]he authority of the Bible is the derived authority of the Gospel" (E. Kasemann, "Is the Gospel Objective?" in Essays on New Testament Themes, trans. W. J. Montague [London: SCM, 1964], 57) (cited by Myers).

 

23. J. Christiaan Beker emphasized the centrality of the gospel for theology when he said that the authority of Scripture can be normative only if we recognize the gospel of Gods  saving purpose as the coherent framework or pattern of Scripture" (J. C. Beker, The Authority of Scripture: Normative or Incidental? Theology Today 49:3 [1992]: 382). Beker's point is as Adventist as one can get.

 

24. Donald Bloesch also favored the centrality of the gospel for theology, saying that the gospel is the "absolute norm" of theology, and calling for a "renewed theology" which is "evangelical, that is, centred in the gospel" (Donald G. Bloesch, A Theology of Word and Spirit: Authority and Method in Theology [Downers Grove: IVP, 1992], 195-99; cited by Myers, "Theologia Evangelii: Peter Jensens Theological Method" 29).

 

25. Jensen pushed the issue of the gospel as centrality further than these scholars by insisting that not only the content but also the method needs to be focused on the gospel  (Myers 28).

 

26. As far as the relationship between revelation and scripture is concerned, Jensen sticked  to propositional revelation similar to evangelicals although he is an Anglican. He emphasizes the cognitive and verbal nature of revelation. He grounded his view of revelation in the gospel. This is also not knew for Adventism. The book Desire of Ages by Ellen White 1897 actually do just this, namely to discuss the work of Christ coherently with links to the Old Testament as well. It is a characteristic of her writings and her Christology. The same can be said about her concept of revelation.

 

27. Jensen stressed the propositional nature of revelation but in doing so he wants to  indicate that verbal inspiration by the authoritative divine-human Lordship of Jesus Christ do that in a covenantal relationship with promises. In SDA circles we can find similar ideas already in the 1960-1980's in the works of the systematic theologian Edward Heppenstall in Our High Priest, Jesus Christ in the Heavenly Sanctuary (1972). One of the strong teachings of Heppenstall was his lectures on Covenants (1953).

 

28. Jensen felt that because Scripture is a covenantal word that is divine and human  therefore for hermeneutics with the methods of literary criticism, the application thereof should be done in subordination to the presuppositions of the Scripture as a trustworthy speech of God. Biblical criticism, reason and tradition was considered by him helpful in so far as it remains a servant to the authority of the Lord of the covenant (Jensen, Revelation of God, 205-229). Seventh Day Adventist scholars and Gerhard Hasel in particular has a number of books out on these topics with criticisms of any kind as a no-option zone for the hermeneutics in Adventism. Literary or other criticisms are done with a hermeneutics of suspicion and though literary analysis or redactional analysis or source analysis, or genre analysis is applied by Adventists in their Bible Commentary and other books, it is done with a hermeneutics of affirmation of the Word of God and not with a hermeneutics of suspicion like literary criticism, genre criticism, redaction criticism, source criticism is doing.

 

29. A good statement by Jensen is: God's revelation is evangelical at heart, covenantal by nature and scriptural in form (Jensen, Revelation of God, 94).

 

30. Liberal scholars starts their investigations from the outside by looking at the  philosophical or psychological presuppositions of faith. Jensen wants to start his  presuppositions with the intrinsic body of data of theology. He feels that a prolegommenon to theology is a vital part of doing theology. There is no external objective standpoint from which we can undertake such a theology (Myers "Theologia Evangelii: Peter Jensen's Theological Method" 30). The necessary starting-point is hearing and responding to the proclaimed word of grace (fides quaerens intellectum). In the book A Symposium on Biblical  Hermeneutics (ed. Gordon Hyde) Seventh Day Adventists have outlined this approach already in  1974.

 

31. In Jensen's view there is no room for understanding God only through nature without  divine revelation. "A theology that starts with the gospel is thus a theology that allows no  room for any human possibility of knowing God?-if any such possibility existed, then theology could begin with the theistic proofs, or the feeling of absolute dependence, or a philosophy of religion, or an analysis of human existence, or some variety of philosophical epistemology" (Myers "Theologia Evangelii: Peter Jensen's Theological Method" 30). The awesomeness of nature indicating that a God must exist is honored by Seventh Day Adventists  in their writings but they also emphasized that without divine revelation facts about God will not be understood. Jensen's also prefer to speak of a theological interpretation of the created order based on faith rather than a rational interpretation of nature that somehow points or leads to faith (Myers "Theologia Evangelii: Peter Jensen's Theological Method" 30). In this regard the rationalistic lectures of Creationists in SDA circles do have a role  that a Christian scientist is pointing to selected indicators of the existence of God or  evidence for aspects of events (like Noah's flood in 2523 BCE) in the Bible that can by  reason and rationality in an apologetic way invite the listener to consider God within his worldview.

 

32. Jensen was against natural theology but he mentioned that man possessed an innate knowledge of God that is a contact point between the gospel and man (Myers "Theologia Evangelii: Peter Jensen's Theological Method" 42). Myers criticizes Jensen here that if  there is such an innate knowledge of God in man prior to faith then such an innate knowledge is a precondition that can be a startingpoint for theology as liberal scholars are asserting. We respond by saying that Paul does say in Romans that the heathen sometimes do by nature the things of the law and is thus for himself a law. If a little bit of grace was not left in man to uphold him, man would have totally disintegrated.

 

33. Jensen is seen by populist Anglican observers as someone who wants to bring the Anglican church back to its puritanical roots (Kelly Burke, in The Sydney Morning Herald describes Peter Jensens appointment as archbishop as 'the culmination of a 40 year crusade to return the diocese to its rightful, puritanical Calvinist roots' [Burke, 2003: 18]. She continued saying  that it is a chance to put an end to the creep towards new-fangled progressive notions such as ordaining women, accepting homosexuality and interpreting the Bible less than literally[Burke, 2003: 18]; cited by Brian Douglas "Anglican Eucharistic Theology" in which he focuses on the theology of Jensen [online available]).

 

34. Jensen's theological method is to seek purity of theology instead of diversity of theology. Diversity is a liberal approach that wants to allow biblical and non-biblical notions of modern society (liberation theologies, anti-colonial theology, women rights activism, anti-nuclear theology etc.) to exist side by side. It sidetracked the Anglican church in the twentieth century but Jensen seems to want to return to puritanity of theology.

 

35. As far as the theology of the eucharist or Lord's Supper is concerned, Jensen made in very clear that Christ is not in the bread or His blood is not in the cup. He said the Bible, not the chalice is the symbol of the evangelical pastor(Jensen, 2003a: 6).

 

36. Jensen is against Catholic sacramentalism regarding the Lord's Supper and he feels that they speak entirely another language (Jensen 2003a: 8, cited by Brian Douglas "Anglican Eucharistic Theology").

 

37. Jensen tries to argue that there is a genuine authentic essential in Anglicanism that is actually Evangelical with emphasis on the Word of God as opposed to the Sacraments of the Word.

 

38. Jensen expressed his anti-sacramentalism the following way: I have serious misgivings about what sacramentalist ministry does to the clarity of the gospel (Jensen, 2003c: 3, cited in Brian Douglas "Anglican Eucharistic Theology").

 

39. What is Eucharist for Jensen? He sees it as remembrance of a man from antiquity in our own time. This remembrance is not similar to what the Anglican Dom Gregory Dix suggested, anamnesis where Christ is really present today in the sacrament.

 

40. Jensen does not support instantiation where the wine becomes the real blood of Christ today. Like SDA's Jensen is firm that the sacrifice of Christ cannot be repeated (see E. Heppenstall in his book Our High Priest, Jesus Christ in the Heavenly Sanctuary [1972] chapter 3 paragraph 5 where he states that the sacrifice was once, and cannot be repeated). The same is said in Heppenstall 1972: chapter 4 paragraph 61 "sacrifice of Christ cannot be repeated". In SDA thinking, Christ offers His blood each moment (Heppenstall 1972: chapter 4 paragraph 56) before the mercy seat in heaven. This means that the cup of the Lord Supper cannot be the blood of Christ which He offers each sacramental moment on earth. It is a symbol of the blood of Christ pointing away from its own composite. For Adventists there is no superstitious magical changing of the wine in blood whether it be transubstantiation, consubstantiation or instantiation. The wine remains the wine. The blood is presented in Heaven although God does not need to be convinced to accept Christians (Heppenstall 1972: chapter 4 paragraph 64). It is in the face of Satan's accusations against us, that the blood is upheld to protect the faithful.

 

41. Jensen sees unity with Christ not in the concrete bread assimilated in the body of the one eating or of the faithful eating the bread as an act uniting with Christ but the faith (so Jensen) that the faithful has, unites with Christ. Just as we eat bread, so are we to be united with Jesus.  We are dealing with a vivid metaphor, a vivid metaphor of faith-in-Jesus Christ.  To trust in Jesus Christ, to have faith in him is to be united with him, to eat him, if you will, so that he will nourish your soul(Jensen, 2002: 3, cited by Brian Douglas "Anglican Eucharistic Theology"). Already in 1898 in Desire of Ages 1898: 661 Ellen White says about eating the bread in the Lord's Supper: "As faith contemplates our Lord's great sacrifice, the soul assimilates the spiritual life of Christ".

 

42. Just like Heppenstall in his lectures and book in 1972 indicate the all-sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice that cannot be repeated, so Jensen spoke to the "National Evangelical Anglican Congress in the United Kingdom in September, 2003 (Jensen, 2003d).  Here Jensen argues ... 'that the sacrifice of Christ (meaning his death on a cross) is so great and all sufficient that it has never and can never be repeated, not even sacramentally; we cannot add to it or supplement it' (Jensen, 2003d: 4, cited by Brian Douglas "Anglican Eucharistic Theology").

 

43. Although similarities can be pinpointed between Adventism and the views of Jensen, parallellomania is a disease where one runs away with a few key points and overlook major differences regarding the Lord's Day as Sunday instead of the Creation week Lord's Day as the 7th. Every item by a scholar needs to be weighed in conjunction with the Bible whether they are similar or not. These few efforts supra by Jensen stand wholeheartedly in the Adventist tradition.

 

44. Jensen's Anglicanism and Adventism agrees with the important role of Christ's sacrifice once and for all but Adventism differs with Jensen's vagueness regarding the continuing atonement role in His Heavenly ministry which Heppenstall indicate as follows: that the offering of Himself and entering in His priestly ministry belong together (Heppenstall 1972: chapter 4 paragraph 5). In Adventism the cross is not more important than the Heavenly ministry. The two belong together. The cross is the essence of the heavenly ministry and without it there would have been no need for a heavenly ministry but the heavenly ministry is one continuous atonement action of God stretching from Eden to the Second Coming. Heppenstall touched upon this thought when he suggested that in Luke 22:32 Christ was already interceding while He was on earth. Before He was functioning officially in the First Apartment as Mediator on our behalf He was interceding for people while on earth. That can be stretched to the Fall of man in Eden and since.

 

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