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Selected Bible Treasures - 11 -
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Selected Bible Treasures
Comments on the History of Interpretation
For a more complete discussion of the history of
interpretation, the reader is urged to read chapter II in the
book Things to Come by J. Dwight Pentecost. 7
Space does not permit much here. However, it is important to
note that Christ and the Apostles took the Old Testament
literally. Indeed, it is impossible to talk of Christ as the Jewish
Messiah without referring to Old Testament prophecies about
Him as if they were to be literally fulfilled.
Unfortunately, the literal approach was soon abandoned by
'believers' as they sought to combine the teachings of the
scriptures with man's philosophies. There is no question that
the hermeneutic of the dark ages in the Roman Church was
the allegoricaI.
A new day -- or, rather an old day revisited -- dawned with the
reformers. We see the reformers stressing the importance of
taking the scriptures in their normal sense. Of course, everyone
admits that there are figures of speech that occur in the
normal use of language. But, this is quite apart from the allegorical
interpretive scheme that takes whole passages and
states that they do not mean what they state taken naturally.
Note the following from Wycliff (this and other quotes come
from the book by Pentecost):
. the whole error in the knowledge of Scripture, and the
source of its debasement and falsification by incompetent
persons, was the ignorance of grammar and logic.
Tyndale was willing to say that the only sense of scripture is
the literal. We may apply it to our lives in various ways but its
only sense is the literal.
Finally, a quote from Luther:
Every word should be allowed to stand in its natural
meaning and that should not be abandoned unless faith
7 J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come (1964, Zondervan, Grand
Rapids)
forces us to it.
.. It is the attribute of Holy Scripture that it interprets
itself by passages and places which belong together, and
can only be understood by the rule of faith.
Implication of the literal Hermeneutic
The reformers had many theological battles to fight. For this
reason, they did not concern themselves with the implications
of their literal hermeneutic regarding future events.
There is no question that the literal approach forces one to a
study of the Bible dispensationally. This is admitted by both
those who are for the dispensational approach and those
who are opposed to it.
That this is true is dramatically demonstrated by a little
paperback book recently published under the title The
Meaning of the Millennium. 8 This book presents the views for
four men on the millennium. One is a dispensationalist
(admittedly, this author does not agree with his beginning the
church in Acts 2, etc.) and the others are not.
What is intriguing is that all four agree that if you take the
Bible literally then you will be a dispensationalist.
The reader will not be shocked that this is the view of the dispensationalist
Herman Hoyt.
What is interesting is that this view is clearly admitted by at
least two of the other authors. George Eldon Ladd writes only
two pages of criticism of Hoyt's article and does not say it
directly.
But the reader should read the responses of the other two.
Note this quote from Loraine Boettner on page 95:
It is generally agreed that if the prophecies are taken
literally, they do foretell a restoration of the nation of
Israel in the land of Palestine ruling over the other
8
Robert G. Clouse, Ed., The Meaning of the Millennium (1977,
Inter Varsity, Downers Grove)