Hermann Spieckermann, «God's Steadfast Love Towards a New Conception of Old Testament Theology», Vol. 81 (2000) 305-327

This article argues in favour of a conception of Old Testament theology that is aware of the different hermeneutical presuppositions due to the different canonical shapes of the Jewish and the Christian Bible, respectively. An Old Testament Theology based on the canon of the Christian Bible has to do equal justice to the Hebrew and to the Greek version of the Old Testament, acknowledging that the Greek version, the Septuagint, is a dominant factor for the emergence of Christian faith. Perceiving the Old Testament from a Christian point of view sheds new light on a central theological issue thus far underestimated in scholarly research: God's steadfast love. The contribution tries to show how this characteristic insight into God's true being is reflected and interpreted in the different parts of the Old Testament.

entire whole as such and at the same time to select parts from it on purpose. Looking at the Servant’s fourth song from this point of view leads to the following conclusion. The idea of the Servant’s suffering and death goes beyond the scope of the Old Testament, probably due to the fact that the Servant’s relationship with God may have been suspected of affecting the monotheistic concept of the Old Testament. The Servant’s fourth song carries the idea of his close relationship with God on even to the edge of the idea of God’s incarnation in human flesh, although the song does not take this final step. God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ is to effect the atonement of the many’s guilt by his suffering and death. This divine action is the New Testament’s centre. It was only possible to perceive this divine action, its necessity and possibiliy, through the writings that first developed into the Jewish and, later, the Christian Bible. Without these writings, not least the Servant’s fourth song, it would have been impossible to understand this divine action as an action caused by love (cf. Rom 5,8; John 3,16). It is significant that God’s mercy, which is a predominant motif in the more recent Old Testament documents, is largely replaced by God’s love in the New Testament. God reconciling the world with himself through his beloved son (2 Cor 5,17-21) makes the loving relationship of the Father and the Son affect the world. According to the example of God’s relationship to wisdom (cf. Wis 1,6; 7,22–8,1; 9–10) God’s mercy takes the shape of love of humankind because God’s love for his son and for the world are one and the same. Since Christians experience and perceive this in Christ’s love they lead their lives gratefully receiving and passing on this love. This is now the way having the abundance of the law in their own lives (cf. Rom 13,8-10), although the law as a way of salvation has come to an end by Christ’s suffering and death (cf. 10,4).

        The New Testament does not conceal that interpretation is required in order to come to know God’s love by Christ’s love that gives a bright light into the hearts. The interpretation is based on the insight that it is God himself ‘to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the Face of Christ’ (2 Cor 4,6) into the believers’ hearts. Any scholarly interpreter of the Christian Bible has to be aware of this presupposition. The story of the walk to Emmaus may serve as a good illustration of the specific perception offered by biblical hermeneutics. In Luke 24,13-35 the process of interpretation is taken as a communication with Jesus risen from the dead. It is he who becomes an interpreter to the two disciples before they can interpret things on their own: ‘And beginning