LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 204

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204

Theology and Church Relations

God revealing Himself in Jesus. As radical as these Roman Catholic
theologians are, they are bound to tradition in a way that Protestants are
not and as a result they make some attempt to incorporate the terminology of the ancient councils in their functional Christology. Such a view
may be called a ‘Christology of revelation’ because Christ reveals God
without being God Himself. But like their Protestant counterparts, these
Roman Catholic theologians are never able to move successfully from a
Christology ‘from below’ to one ‘from above.’ Their approach may be
more deceptive. Their use of traditional Christological language of the
Creeds hides their true intentions. Any Christology which goes no further than a discussion of the historical Jesus places itself in opposition
to the Christology of the Scriptures as well as that of the early church.
“Christology ‘from below’ was popularized by the late Anglican
bishop and Cambridge don, John A. T. Robinson, in his books Honest to
God and The Human Face of God. He describes the divine and human
qualities of Jesus with traditional language. But when he speaks of Jesus
as ‘the personal representative of God: He stands in God’s place. He is
God to us and for us,’ he is setting up a different Christology from that
of Chalcedon. In the last years of his life Robinson gave up his attempts
at dogmatics and devoted himself to New Testament studies, where his
views were surprisingly conservative. As a theologian, Robinson was
not a particularly original thinker and only synthesized the views of others. A lack of clarity and an inability to grapple with the materials may
have been his real problem. To him, nevertheless, belongs the credit of
bringing views into the open which the majority of scholars have held
for nearly two centuries, so that the laity could understand.
“The issue of Christology ‘from below’ came to inflammatory expression in The Myth of God Incarnate. As occurs in any collection
of essays from a group of authors, it lacks unity of thought, except in
its consistent denial of orthodox Christology and its substitution of a
Christology ‘from below.’ A debate began on British soil and soon raged
throughout the English-speaking world. Frances Young, one of the contributors, ‘discovered’ that even the apostle Paul did not have an incarnational theology. John Hick, the editor, finds the Incarnation pernicious
because it implies that there is no salvation outside of Christianity.
He calls for recognition of God’s work through other religions” (7,
8).
42. Matthew 1:18–23; Luke 1:26–38; Isaiah 7:14.
43. The Revised Standard Version of the National Council of Churches
translates Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.
Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his
name Immanuel. “Here the translators of the Revised Standard Version
permitted their modern liberal theology to dictate how a particular passage
ought to read.
The word almah is the Hebrew word which the RSV here designates as
“a young woman.”
While the etymological meaning of almah is a sexually mature girl,
sound exegesis does not base the meaning of a word on its etymology.
Almah is the feminine of elem which occurs twice in the Old Testament.
In 1 Samuel 17:56, Saul called David, when he came back from fighting
Goliath, an elem. He was then about twenty years old and unmarried; later
Michal became his first wife. After that, David is never called an elem.
Nowhere is elem used of a married man.
Almah Nothing but Virgin
Almah occurs nine times in the Old Testament. In two places (Ps.
46:1; 1 Chronicles 15:20) we have the plural alamoth. There is no passage
where Almah is not a virgin. Nowhere in the Bible or in any Hebrew
or Semitic literature does almah mean anything different from virgin.
Jastrow’s dictionary shows that almah has no implication of marriage
even in later Hebrew. The International Critical Commentary (ICC) cites
Proverbs 30:19 as evidence that the word does not mean “virgin”; and
then the ICC on Proverbs 30:19 cites Isaiah 7:14 as the only proof that the
word means a married woman. Some have argued that if Isaiah had meant
a “virgin” he would have used bethulah. However, in Joel 1:8, bethulah is
used of a woman who has had a husband. Almah alone seems to insure the
thought that this is an unmarried woman. Luther

2013 Convention Workbook

Luther said:
lf they make the claim that the Hebrew text does not state a virgin
whereas almah means a young maiden, ... in the case of Christians, the
answer is easy from St. Matthew (1:22–23) and Luke (1:27), both of
whom apply the passage in Isaiah to Mary and translate the word almah
“virgin,” whom we believe rather than the whole world. For God the
Holy Spirit speaks through St. Matthew and St. Luke, of whom we firmly
believe that He understands the Hebrew language and words.
Luther also wrote: “If a Jew or a Hebraist could prove to me that almah
could possibly mean a married woman in the Scripture, he shall get a
hundred gold coins (Gulden) from me (God knows where I’ll find them).”
George Stoeckhardt, one of Lutheranism’s most scholarly exegetes, who
quotes this statement of Luther, adds: “Since then Hebrew philogy has
made great strides; but, if Luther lived today, he could still make that
challenge without losing any money.”
Almah was translated “virgin” by the Septuagint (200 B.C.), the
Vulgate (400 A.D.), Luther (1534–1546), the King James Version (1611),
the British Revision (1881–1885), and the American Standard Version
(1901). Such great Christian scholars as Luther, Stoeckhardt, Ludwig
Fuerbringer, Robert Dick Wilson, Walter A. Maier all insisted on “virgin.”
Now the RSV (1952) translates “a young woman” and even a Lutheran
Advisory Committee on English Bible Versions says that “young woman”
is a justifiable translation.
The Dead Sea Scroll
In the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah a little strip has been worn away at
Isaiah 7:14. But there on the brittle margin stands haalmah untouched.
May that be a sign to us. And may this amazing discovery of the Isaiah
manuscript, as it wipes off the blackboard of modern comment a whole
host of speculations, be a proof to us that “the grass dries up and die
flower withers, but the Word of our God will stand forever,” Isaiah 40:8.
In His Word God has defined haalmah as “the virgin.” We may wither, but
that will stand! (Otten, op. cit., 23–29; the author relied on “What Does
Almah Mean?” William F. Beck, Christian Handbook on Vital Issues
(Christian News), 537–548. See also the section on Messianic Prophecy in
the CNE, 2665–2677; CNE, 263.
44. Otten, op. cit., 56–58.
45. 1 Tim. 2:6.
46. John 2:2.
47. Isaiah 53:4–6.
Modern liberals only teach that Christ somehow conquered the power of sin, death, and the power of the devil, but they reject the real doctrine of the vicarious satisfaction of Christ. The Bible, however, clearly
teaches that Christ is not only the victor over sin but that he also fully
appeased God’s wrath for sin and satisfied the demands of divine justice.
God is both a holy and a loving God. Since He is holy, He cannot tolerate sin in His sight. All men have sinned and no man can wipe away the
guilt of His own sin (Psalm 14:3; Ecclesiastes 7:20; 1 John 1:8). God
had decreed that because man had sinned, he would perish in everlasting
damnation (Romans 6:23). But then God in His great love sent His Son
to suffer and die in the place of all men. Christ satisfied the demands of
divine justice by His perfect obedience to the Law (active obedience)
and by His death on the cross (passive obedience).
Christ, who is expressly called “Priest” both in the Old Testament
(Psalm 110:4: “Thou art a Priest forever”; Zechariah 6:13, “a Priest
upon His throne”) and in the New (“a Priest forever,” Hebrews 5:6) has
in the state of humiliation reconciled the whole world to God. 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.”
Christ reconciled the world to God by offering Himself as propitiation to God for the sins of mankind. Paul declared that Christ “gave
Himself a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:6). John wrote that Christ “has
paid for our sins, and not for ours only but for the whole world” (1 John
2:2). William Beck correctly comments in a footnote on this verse in his
translation of the New Testament: “His sacrifice wipes out our sins and
changes God’s anger to love.” Isaiah prophesied concerning the coming
Messiah: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet
we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was