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Occurrences of διαθήκη in Hebrews

Hebrews 7:22-κατὰ τοσοῦτο καὶ κρείττονος διαθήκης γέγονεν ἔγγυος Ἰησοῦς.

Hebrews 8:6-νῦν δὲ διαφορωτέρας τέτυχεν λειτουργίας, ὅσῳ καὶ κρείττονός ἐστιν διαθήκης μεσίτης, ἥτις ἐπὶ κρείττοσιν ἐπαγγελίαις νενομοθέτηται.

Hebrews 8:8-μεμφόμενος γὰρ αὐτοὺς λέγει Ἰδοὺ ἡμέραι ἔρχονται, λέγει Κύριος, καὶ συντελέσω ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον Ἰσραὴλ καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον Ἰούδα διαθήκην καινήν,

Hebrews 8:9-οὐ κατὰ τὴν διαθήκην ἣν ἐποίησα τοῖς πατράσιν αὐτῶν ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ἐπιλαβομένου μου τῆς χειρὸς αὐτῶν ἐξαγαγεῖν αὐτοὺς ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου, ὅτι αὐτοὶ οὐκ ἐνέμειναν ἐν τῇ διαθήκῃ μου, κἀγὼ ἠμέλησα αὐτῶν, λέγει Κύριος.

Hebrews 810-ὅτι αὕτη ἡ διαθήκη ἣν διαθήσομαι τῷ οἴκῳ Ἰσραήλ μετὰ τὰς ἡμέρας ἐκείνας, λέγει Κύριος, διδοὺς νόμους μου εἰς τὴν διάνοιαν αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐπὶ καρδίας αὐτῶν ἐπιγράψω αὐτούς, καὶ ἔσομαι αὐτοῖς εἰς θεόν καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔσονταί μοι εἰς λαόν.

Hebrews 9:4-χρυσοῦν ἔχουσα θυμιατήριον καὶ τὴν κιβωτὸν τῆς διαθήκης περικεκαλυμμένην πάντοθεν χρυσίῳ, ἐν ᾗ στάμνος χρυσῆ ἔχουσα τὸ μάννα καὶ ἡ ῥάβδος Ἀαρὼν ἡ βλαστήσασα καὶ αἱ πλάκες τῆς διαθήκης,

Hebrews 9:15-Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο διαθήκης καινῆς μεσίτης ἐστίν, ὅπως θανάτου γενομένου εἰς ἀπολύτρωσιν τῶν ἐπὶ τῇ πρώτῃ διαθήκῃ παραβάσεων τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν λάβωσιν οἱ κεκλημένοι τῆς αἰωνίου κληρονομίας.

Hebrews 9:16-ὅπου γὰρ διαθήκη, θάνατον ἀνάγκη φέρεσθαι τοῦ διαθεμένου·

Hebrews 9:17- διαθήκη γὰρ ἐπὶ νεκροῖς βεβαία, ἐπεὶ μὴ τότε ἰσχύει ὅτε ζῇ ὁ διαθέμενος.

Hebrews 9:20-λέγων Τοῦτο τὸ αἷμα τῆς διαθήκης ἧς ἐνετείλατο πρὸς ὑμᾶς ὁ θεός·

Hebrews 10:16-Αὕτη ἡ διαθήκη ἣν διαθήσομαι πρὸς αὐτούς μετὰ τὰς ἡμέρας ἐκείνας, λέγει Κύριος, διδοὺς νόμους μου ἐπὶ καρδίας αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν διάνοιαν αὐτῶν ἐπιγράψω αὐτούς,

Hebrews 10:29-πόσῳ δοκεῖτε χείρονος ἀξιωθήσεται τιμωρίας ὁ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ καταπατήσας, καὶ τὸ αἷμα τῆς διαθήκης κοινὸν ἡγησάμενος ἐν ᾧ ἡγιάσθη, καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς χάριτος ἐνυβρίσας.

Hebrews 12:24-καὶ διαθήκης νέας μεσίτῃ Ἰησοῦ, καὶ αἵματι ῥαντισμοῦ κρεῖττον λαλοῦντι παρὰ τὸν Ἅβελ.

Hebrews 13:20-Ὁ δὲ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης, ὁ ἀναγαγὼν ἐκ νεκρῶν τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων τὸν μέγαν ἐν αἵματι διαθήκης αἰωνίου, τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν,

Over half of the thirty NT occurrences of διαθήκη appear in Hebrews. Furthermore, there are numerous books and journal articles dealing with covenant theology/semantics in Hebrews: I will list a couple.

https://www.academia.edu/44332163/_The_Concept_of_%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%B8%CE%AE%CE%BA%CE%B7_in_Hebrews_9_16_17_

https://www.academia.edu/18498642/A_Comparison_of_17th_Century_and_Modern_Interpretations_of_the_Meaning_and_Significance_for_Covenant_Theology_of_Diatheke_%CE%94%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%B8%CE%AE%CE%BA%CE%B7_in_Hebrews_9_16_17?rhid=27836246220&swp=rr-rw-wc-19918245

Double Predestination and A Loving God? John (Jean) Calvin

About ten years ago, someone asked me about Jean Calvin. They were trying to wrap their heads around the fact that he believed in "double predestination" and simultaneously thought "God is love" (1 John 4:8).

Please let Calvin himself explain:

"I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless that it so seemed meet to God? Here the most loquacious tongues must be dumb. The decree, I admit, is, dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknow what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree. Should any one here inveigh against the prescience of God, he does it rashly and unadvisedly. For why, pray, should it be made a charge against the heavenly Judge, that he was not ignorant of what was to happen?"

"Nor ought it to seem absurd when I say, that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it. For as it belongs to his wisdom to foreknow all future events, so it belongs to his power to rule and govern them by his hand."

See Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.23.7

Bildad in Job 25-The Distortion of Truth

In Job 25, Bildad speaks the truth in a sense, but he distorts matters when he speaks to Job or concerning him: Job 25:6 while true in the abstract must have felt like the pangs of a sword to Job. The rhetorical questions with presupposed negative answers in Job 25:4 are worth quoting: "How then can a mortal be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure?" (NIV)

Rebecca R. Clark writes:

Finally, Bildad asks, “How then can a mortal be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure?” (25:4).115 Ash proposes, “This is the answer of human religion. But it is also the satan’s answer.”116 Unbeknownst to Job’s friends, in aiming to proclaim the truth about God, they are spokesmen of the satan.117 Although the satan is not present in the remainder of the narrative, he continues to be voiced.

See  https://firescholars.seu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=mats

 

 

Psalm 51:5 (Guilt or Iniquity?)

Hebrew (Leningrad Codex): הֵן־בְּעָוֹ֥ון חֹולָ֑לְתִּי וּ֝בְחֵ֗טְא יֶֽחֱמַ֥תְנִי אִמִּֽי׃

NET: "Look, I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me."

ESV: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."

The Hebrew word avon sometimes bears the meaning "guilt," but it may also denote iniquity or punishment for iniquity. 

Compare Jeremiah 2:22 (NET), but see the translation's notes. Cf. Romans 7:18-20. BDB makes the point that it's hard at times to distinguish the concept of guilt from iniquity when it comes to the Hebrew avon. NWT 2013 opts for the "guilty" aspect of the word.

https://www.academia.edu/99185796/_Indeed_I_was_born_guilty_Reading_Psalm_51_7_in_a_Canonical_Context?rhid=27729000667&swp=rr-rw-wc-37767435

God Is A Necessary Being

A student once asked me the question that a lot of people wonder about: who made God? A few scriptures directly address this question, but I referenced Psalm 90:2 in my answer to the student and one might also consider 1 Timothy 1:17. Furthermore, I tried to reason with her concerning the difficulty of understanding how God could have always existed without being created by invoking concepts in physics that are hard to understand (i.e., they are comparable to understanding God's necessary existence). For example, most people do not comprehend the math for relativity theory. But two arguments for God's existence that seem compelling to me are (1) the argument from possibility and necessity or Aquinas' third way; (2) the need to avoid an infinite regress. 

Regarding number (1), it seems reasonable to suppose that "if all things possibly fail to exist at some time then possibly there is a time when nothing exists" (Robert E. Maydole).

If it's logically possible that nothing finite once existed, then it is logically possible that if non-existent things did come to have actual existence instead of just potential existence, then a necessary being (one who exists without any other entity sustaining the being's existence) brought once non-existent things into existence. Nevertheless, I think Aquinas' third way (proof) only works if one modalizes it like Maydole does.

But my student objects that we can't see God or empirically detect him like we are capable of measuring or detecting physical entities (e.g. the wind, atoms, and gravity). While I grant this point, it does not seem that the objection is fatal to belief in God. Many things in physics are less than certain (to understate the matter) and science has even predicted the existence of some things that were not detected at the time, for instance, in chemistry, cosmology and with string theory. There are still some things that science has never detected but these things are widely thought to exist. Besides, to suppose that we must see/hear something (etc.) to believe it exists is a metaphysical position or an article of faith: the proposition itself is not a fact.

Quite frankly, it takes more faith to believe this universe arose from absolute nothingness without God than it does to believe in God, the ens realissimum and ens necessarius. Peter van Inwagen has a great point about the odds of the universe coming into existence from absolutely nothing, including no God. Try 0% on for size.

1 Corinthians 11:27 (A Brief Comment)

Greek: ὥστε ὃς ἂν ἐσθίῃ τὸν ἄρτον ἢ πίνῃ τὸ ποτήριον τοῦ κυρίου ἀναξίως, ἔνοχος ἔσται τοῦ σώματος καὶ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ κυρίου.

I've been wanting to address this verse because someone recently told me that they thought Jehovah would never forgive a person who ate the bread during the Memorial (Lord's evening supper) or who drank the cup, but who was not anointed. But I assured them that while it is a serious thing to partake of the bread and wine, there are at least two things to consider.

1) When Paul spoke of partaking "unworthily," whom was he referencing? At the time 1 Corinthians was written, all Christians shared the "one hope" (Ephesians 4:5) and they were anointed with God's holy spirit through the Lord Jesus. Hence, Paul likely was not telling them to make sure they were children of God: the spirit already imparted that knowledge to them. Rather, per the context, his point involved how they lived each day and their perspective towards the holy bread and the cup of wine.

2) While Jehovah promises to recompense inveterate sinners and those who utterly disrespect sacred things, if a person genuinely commits an error respecting the bread and the cup, would God not extend mercy to one who sinned unintentionally or who later realized his/her error? The Bible assures us that he would (Psalm 86:5).

Jehovah forgave David, Manasseh and Saul of Tarsus. Why would he not forgive a person who wrongly partook of the emblems, but maybe had extenuating circumstances that account for his/her actions.

Brief Notes from Donald Bloesch's "God the Almighty"

Donald G. Bloesch. God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, Love. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995. 

Bloesch lived from 1928-2010. He was an evangelical theologian and prolific writer. 

"The God of the Bible cannot be described in univocal language, only by means of analogy, metaphor and simile." (page 32). 

"The God of philosophy is capable of being thought and thereby mastered. The God of theology remains hidden and inscrutable until he makes himself known" (p. 32).

God is "being-in-person" (32).

"How God accomplishes his purposes in conjunction with human effort and striving is a mystery that lies beyond human comprehension. Like creation and redemption, providence is a mystery open only to faith" (116).

Bloesch considers both determinism and indeterminism to be heresies (ibid.).

On pages 116-117, he poses some interesting questions about God's putative relationship to creatures and time.