Creator, Creation, Covenant, Law, & Christ.

I've been totally behind on posting to the blog! I want to catch up quickly, so here are some broad strokes on Scripture.

The Testimony to the Creator:
An important aspect of the Old Testament is its witness to God as Creator. When the New Testament is read or built upon without this witness behind it, we lose sense of the world and creation and "the New Testament understanding of Christian existence" is necessarily distorted. (Weber, 293)

Creation and Covenant:
Covenant is the basic term by which God establishes relationship with creation. Through covenant, humanity is permitted and invited to participate and be admitted into God's own realm. (Weber, 293) Here you go:

The Old Testament could only make the Creator known because it was coming from the encounter in which the Creator had disclosed himself as the Other and yet the One who turns to man and allows himself to be approacehed and addressed by man.

Weber, 293

This relationship to humanity is not limited to Israel, as the Old Testament witnesses to, but its central point and orientation of knowing is in and through Israel. God has established it this way.

Covenant and Law:
The Law of the Old Testament finds its meaning and ground in the covenant. Weber states that,

The law characterizes life in the covenant as life in obedience and thus as historical life. The fundamental "I am" of the decalogue is inseparable from the corresponding "Thou shalt" of the commandments.

Weber, 295.

Christ and Scripture:
In the section on "The Unfulfilled Law," Weber says important things about the function of the covenant and the law, and how it is always oriented towards a future and concrete fulfillment. Thus, Israel would reach forward with its own hands toward fulfillment of this covenant yet it could not do so, convicted of its failure by the law. So where can they turn? Paul gives us this answer in Romans 10:4 as stated by Weber,

The goal and end of the law is Christ...as the new reality. How should this be understood?

Weber, 298.

This statement is of inestimable significance. Weber beings to explain this significance on pp. 298-299. It means everything for us, for our possibility, for our contribution to salvation, etc. Here you go:

Jesus Chist is the person in who God's covenant finds its real partner, and he is simultaneously the one in whom this covenant is fulfilled. ... He is not the end of God's will toward the covenant partner. But he is the end of the law understood as man's possibility.

Weber, 299.

Thus, all we are, might be, used to be, may become is thankfully, mercifully, and gracefully in Christ. It makes sense then for Weber to posit Christ as the center of all scripture. (Weber, 302ff.) There is our hermeneutic. Enough with scripture...it's on to the Triune God!

BTW: today's reading (pp. 433-437) was awesome.