Monday, July 10, 2023

Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., on "The Tables of Stone and the Tables of Fleshy Hearts"

  

The Tables of Stone and the Tables of Fleshy Hearts

 

In defending himself against the charge of self-praise Paul responds that his commendation and letters of recommendation are found in the lives of the converts at Corinth; they are letters known and read by all men since they were written by the Spirit of the living God, not in an external fashion (“on the tables of stone”), but internally on the heart as promised in Jer 31:33; Ezek 11:19; 36:26).

 

This is precisely the argument of the whole Bible. In accordance with God’s ancient promise, God would write the same law (for he has no other law) on their hearts; he would “be their God, and they [would] be [his] people.” Thus enabled, they (and we) would walk in God’s statutes, keep his judgments and fear him forever (cf. Jer 32:29; 24:7).

 

Now this was the heart of New Covenant Theology. But can anyone fail to see at least some OT intimations of this provision in Deut 30:6: “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live”? Was not this the weightiest matter of the law according to Moses? Without faith, without an internal operation by the living God and a turning to the Lord, it would be impossible to keep the law in any genuine matter.

 

The contrasts between “ink” and “Spirit,” “stones” and “heart” must not be pressed too sharply. Since Paul is using the metaphor to refer to the Corinthian believers as letters written on his [or “their”; cf. textual variations here] heart, it was altogether consistent for him to continue that same figure of speech to describe himself as a minister of the Spirit. Exod says nothing about “ink,” but it does say that the “tables of stone” were “the work of God” in Exod 31:18; 32:16. The contrast, then, appears to be motivated more by a desire to highlight the emphasis found in the New Ten Commandments of God’s previous work in (ink or) stone. After all, it was not the mode of revelation that was under judgment in this passage; rather it was the blinded response of the people themselves which came under God’s indictment. (Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., “The Weightier and Lighter Matters of the Law: Moses, Jesus and Paul,” in Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation: Studies in Honor of Merrill C. Tenney Presented By His Former Students, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1975], 186-87)