An International Journal for Students of Theological and Religious Studies Volume 37 Issue 1 April 2012 EDITORIAL: Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me 1 D. A. Carson Off the Record: The Goldilocks Zone 4 Michael J. Ovey John Owen on Union with Christ and Justification 7 J. V. Fesko The Earth Is Crammed with Heaven: Four Guideposts 20 to Reading and Teaching the Song of Songs Douglas Sean O’Donnell The Profit of Employing The Biblical Languages: 32 Scriptural and Historical Reflections Jason S. DeRouchie Book Reviews 51 DESCRIPTION Themelios is an international evangelical theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith. Its primary audience is theological students and pastors, though scholars read it as well. It was formerly a print journal operated by RTSF/UCCF in the UK, and it became a digital journal operated by The Gospel Coalition in 2008. The editorial team draws participants from across the globe as editors, essayists, and reviewers. Themelios is published three times a year exclusively online at www.theGospelCoalition.org. It is presented in two formats: PDF (for citing pagination) and HTML (for greater accessibility, usability, and infiltration in search engines). Themelios is copyrighted by The Gospel Coalition. Readers are free to use it and circulate it in digital form without further permission (any print use requires further written permission), but they must acknowledge the source and, of course, not change the content. EDITORS BOOK ReVIEW EDITORS Systematic Theology and Bioethics Hans Madueme General Editor: D. A. Carson Old Testament Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Daniel Santos 2065 Half Day Road; D-632 2065 Half Day Road Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie— Deerfield, IL 60015, USA Deerfield, IL 60015, USA CPAJ [email protected] [email protected] Rua Maria Borba, 15 Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil 01221-040 Ethics (but not Bioethics) and Pastoralia Managing Editor: Charles Anderson [email protected] Dane Ortlund Oak Hill Theological College Chase Side, Southgate New Testament Crossway London, N14 4PS, UK Alan Thompson 1300 Crescent Street [email protected] Sydney Missionary & Bible College Wheaton, IL 60187, USA PO Box 83 [email protected] Contributing Editor: Michael J. Ovey Oak Hill Theological College Croydon, NSW 2132, Australia Mission and Culture Chase Side, Southgate [email protected] Jason Sexton London, N14 4PS, UK History and Historical Theology St Mary’s College [email protected] Nathan A. Finn University of St Andrews Administrator: Andrew David Naselli Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary South Street Grace Bible Church P. O. Box 1889 St Andrews, KY16 9JU 107 West Road Wake Forest, NC 27588, USA Scotland Moore, SC 29369, USA [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] EDITORIal BOARD Gerald Bray, Beeson Divinity School; Oliver D. Crisp, University of Bristol; William Kynes, Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church; Ken Magnuson, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Jonathan Pennington, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; James Robson, Wycliffe Hall; Michael Thate, Durham University; Mark D. Thompson, Moore Theological College; Garry Williams, The John Owen Centre, London Theological Seminary; Paul Williamson, Moore Theological College; Stephen Witmer, Pepperell Christian Fellowship. ARTIcleS Articles should generally be about 4,000 to 7,000 words (including footnotes) and should be submitted to the Managing Editor of Themelios, which is peer-reviewed. Articles should use clear, concise English, following The SBL Handbook of Style (esp. for abbreviations), supplemented by The Chicago Manual of Style. They should consistently use either UK or USA spelling and punctuation, and they should be submitted electronically as an email attachment using Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx extensions) or Rich Text Format (.rtf extension). Special characters should use a Unicode font. ReVIEWS The book review editors generally select individuals for book reviews, but potential reviewers may contact them about reviewing specific books. As part of arranging book reviews, the book review editors will supply book review guidelines to reviewers. Themelios 37.1 (2012): 1–3 EDITORIal Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me — D. A. Carson — D. A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. Editor’s Note: This is a lightly updated transcript of one of Carson’s addresses at the 150th anniversary of Grace Baptist Mission in the UK. This one was broadcast over BBC Radio 4 on Sunday, October 30, 2011. It is a brief apologia for mission in a world that regularly despises mission. or many people, the thought of missionary work sounds, at best, painfully old-fashioned. It con- jures up mental images of black-and-white photographs, now curled and yellowed; of intense, well-meaning, men and women in dated dress, imposing their stern Victorian values on the free Fspirits of foreign shores. Worse, to many contemporaries missionary endeavour is not merely old-fash- ioned, but positively mischievous. For missionaries are necessarily intolerant people. They invade cul- tures not their own, and by pushing Jesus and the gospel, they announce that they think their religion and culture are superior to the local one—and that, surely, is the very essence of intolerance. As one recent critical missionary biographer puts it, missionary work is “inherently patronizing to the host culture. That’s what a mission is—a bunch of strangers showing up somewhere uninvited to inform the locals they are wrong.”1 So what are we doing in 2011 in Solihull, celebrating the 150th anniversary of Grace Baptist Mission? Instead of celebrating, wouldn’t it be more admirable to hold a service of public contrition and tell the world we’re sorry and will not send any more missionaries? Christians, of course, cannot forget that during his lifetime Jesus himself trained people to go and herald the good news. Christians remember that Jesus was sent by his Father, he insisted, to seek and save those who are lost. So it is not too surprising that he in turn sends his followers. That’s what our word “mission” means: it derives from the verb “to send.” “As the Father has sent me,” Jesus once said, “I am sending you” (John 20:21 NIV). Among his last recorded words are these: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt 28:20 NIV). So Christians, understandably, will entertain a high view of those who actively seek to discharge Jesus’ mission. 1 Sarah Vowell, Unfamiliar Fishes (New York: Riverhead, 2011), 55. 1 Themelios There are two common objections raised against this Christian view of missionary endeavor. It’s worth reflecting on them before we contemplate the most convincing reason why missionary work is essential. First, Jesus himself insists, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matt 7:1 NIV). Doesn’t this mean that if we follow Jesus’ teaching we should refuse to make moral and religious evaluations? Certainly that view is common on the street. “I don’t mind Jesus,” we hear; “it’s Christians I can’t stand. Christians run around self-righteously telling people how to live, condemning other religions, sending missionaries off to meddle in other cultures. Why don’t they follow the instruction of the Jesus they claim to serve? After all, he said, ‘Do not judge, or you too will be judged.’” When I was a boy I learned a few of the first principles of interpreting texts. I learned, “A text without a context becomes a pretext for a proof-text.” So I suppose we better remind ourselves of the context where Jesus says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” It’s found in the Sermon on the Mount. That sermon contains quite a few teachings of Jesus. Here, for example, Jesus criticizes the man who looks at a woman lustfully, on the ground that such a man has already committed adultery in his heart (Matt 5:28). Here he teaches us not to store up treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal; rather, we must store up for ourselves treasures in heaven, knowing that where our treasure is, there our hearts will be, too (6:19–21). Here he tells us to watch out for false prophets, which presupposes we must make distinctions between the true and the false (7:15–20). Here he insists that on the last day not everyone who says to him “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of his Father who is in heaven (7:21–23). In all these utterances, Jesus is making moral, religious, and cultural evaluations. He is, in short, making judgments. So after making all these judgments, what does he mean by saying “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”? The context shows that he means something like “Do not be cheaply critical, or you will be subjected to the same criticism.” In other words, there is no way on God’s green earth that this command prohibits his followers from making moral judgements, when making moral judgements is precisely what the sweep of his teaching demands that they do. But he does insist that when they follow his instruction and make evaluations and judgments they must do so without cheap criticism of others—a notoriously difficult requirement. There must be no condescension, no double standard, no sense of superiority, no patronizing sentimentality.