The Church as Heir of Israel’s Vocation as Royal Priesthood -- By: Byron Wheaton

Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 22:2 (Summer 2018)
Article: The Church as Heir of Israel’s Vocation as Royal Priesthood
Author: Byron Wheaton


The Church as Heir of Israel’s Vocation as Royal Priesthood

Byron Wheaton

Byron Wheaton has served as a pastor and theological educator in the United States, Canada, and Asia for over 40 years. He earned a PhD from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in Hermeneutics with an emphasis in the Old Testament. He is currently an adjunct professor at Ryle Theological Seminary, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and Heritage Theological Seminary, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. He has authored several articles including “Focus and Structure in the Abraham Narrative” (Trinity Journal, Spring 2006), “As It is Written: Old Testament Foundations for Jesus; Expectation of Resurrection” (Westminster Theological Journal, Fall 2008), and he is the author of Matter Matters: Being Disciples of Jesus in a World of Things (Self Published, 2016). Dr. Wheaton and his wife Jackie live in Kingston, Ontario, and are the parents of four adult children.

Before the advent of higher criticism, students of scripture took it for granted that one read the Bible as a whole. With the introduction of higher criticism in the 19th century, this “naïve assumption” was roundly rejected. In its place, the scholars argued there were many “sources,” some of which provided competing approaches to an array of different topics1. In the mid-20th century, Brevard Childs championed the idea of “canonical” criticism. While not rejecting source criticism outright, he argued that the canon was the authoritative set of documents that the church accepted as its scripture.2 As such, it needed to be examined and studied as a whole. Later, other scholars argued that the literary merits of the text demonstrated far more cohesiveness than had previously been recognized.3 Hence, reading scripture as a cohesive unit found new traction.

Scholars who worked from a presupposition of biblical inspiration and authority, welcomed this renewed interest in the canon of scripture and contributed to the discussion by showing how various key themes of biblical teaching developed throughout scripture. Hence, the discipline of biblical theology was given renewed attention in scholarly circles.

One theme that has perplexed Old Testament (OT) scholarship over the last century has been the idea of and role for the priests in Israel’s religion. Source criticism argued that Israel had an evolving view of priests. Originally when its religious ideas were in their infancy, every head of the household ser...

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