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Father, we thank thee for the privilege of the study together again tonight. We ask that thou would give us guidance and direction as we think over some of the questions that have to do with the study and interpretation of the Word of God. We're grateful for all of the light that thou hast thrown upon the Word for us, and Lord, we pray that thou will continue to unfold the scriptures, that we might understand our Lord better and follow him more closely. We commit this hour to thee, in Jesus' name, amen. Now there are a few of you who have not been here in our series of studies, and we are studying the divine purpose, and particularly as it relates to the ages, the nation Israel, and the Gentile nations.
In a sense, it is an attempt to have a little bit more sophisticated study of God's plan of the ages, but we will also be dealing with some other questions later in some of the details of the plan of God. We have followed this general practice of, or this general, uh, procedure, I should say, of beginning with covenant theology, setting out covenant theology as is, as it is taught by covenant theologians, with the three primary covenants of the covenant of redemption, the eternal covenant of redemption, the covenant of works made by God with Adam in the Garden of Eden, and then the covenant of grace, the covenant made by the Triune God, some students say the Lord Jesus, with the elect.
And then we also pointed out that in covenant theology, there is also place for dispensations, but the dispensations of covenant theology are the, the periods of time during which and in accordance with which the covenant of grace is administered. So generally speaking, in covenant theology, we have the dispensation from Adam to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Christ, and then the New Testament dispensation is usually considered as one. We discussed, uh, covenant theology and sought to set it out as fairly and as plainly as possible, and, uh, we have not been overly critical of it at this point.
Our next, uh, purpose was to investigate dispensational theology. We looked at the history of dispensationalism, as we did of covenant theology, and now we are seeking to set out some of the distinctive features of dispensational theology. These are two types of theologies within evangelicalism that seek to set out a plan of the ages in accordance with what they feel the scriptures teach. Now, very important, and when from now on we will be dealing with some of the features of dispensationalism. I say from now on, I mean for the next, uh, few weeks that we have the study, we'll be dealing with certain features of dispensational theology, such as the hermeneutic, which we're finishing tonight.
We will look at the question of law and grace and a few things like that, which are distinctives of dispensational theology, such as the covenantal scheme is distinctive of covenant theology. Then later on we will seek to erect a slightly different view from either of these two positions of the purpose of the ages, but that will be later on in our studies. Now, last week we were looking at distinctive feature number one of dispensational theology, the hermeneutic of dispensational theology, and I was overly ambitious, thinking that I could cover this outline in one hour, though usually I take at least two in theological seminary to treat it, and, uh, I unfortunately was, got a little bogged down, and so we didn't finish it.
In fact, we got down to Roman two B, or the problem of typology. But some of you are not here, so I'm going to take the liberty of just giving a brief review of what we were talking about, so that you'll understand this outline. I began by mentioning that there is a, a great deal of discussion in evangelicalism, in Christian theology, over the s- the question of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the technical term for interpretation. So when you study hermeneutics in a theological school, you are studying the science of interpretation.
That's because the term is built upon the Greek word hermeneo, which means to interpret. So hermeneutics is the science of interpretation. And the struggle over hermeneutics is very fundamental for understanding the Bible because we understand the Bible by the exercise of certain hermeneutical principles in our mind as we read and ponder the word of God. We may not, we may think that we don't know anything about hermeneutics, and we may just read the Bible, but you are reading the Bible according to certain principles of understanding a written text. And while, uh, your hermeneutics may not be very sophisticated, you have one.
It's like a theology. Everybody has a theology. It may not be a very sophisticated one, but nevertheless, you have a theology. And believe it or not, every one of you in this auditorium is a philosopher, because we all have to have a certain philosophy. Some of us have a poor philosophy, some have a better philosophy, some have a well thought out one, but we all have a philosophy, including the one who says, I don't have a philosophy. That, of course, is his philosophy. So he has a very poor philosophy, but he has one too. Now, the question of hermeneutics affects not simply the Bible, but it affects almost every sphere of our human life.
I illustrated it by the present struggle taking place between our Attorney General of the United States, Edwin Meese, and William Brennan, one of the justices on the Supreme Court, who are debating how we should read the Constitution. And Attorney- Attorney General Meese, being a conservative, wants to read the Constitution in the light of the original intent of its authors. Whereas William Brennan, one of the liberal members of the Supreme Court, generally regarded as the most liberal of the members of the Supreme Court, wants to read the Constitution in a very loose way.
That is, he wants to say that the Supreme Court, that the Constitution sets out certain principles, and that we should feel free to apply these cr- uh, principles as is necessary in our society today. I don't doubt that Mr. Meese would, uh, agree with that, except that he would say that we must be guided by the original intent of the authors. Well, Mr. Brennan is not so careful, and, uh, the Warren Court, as we all know, was illustrative of the freedom of reading the Constitution. In fact, if we do not read the Constitution, or any other document for that matter, by the principles of the original intent of the authors, then we don't need the document at all.
And so we really wouldn't need a constitution at all if we're free to change the original intent that the authors had when they wrote it. Now, there are many difficulties in doing that. After all, the constitution was written a couple of hundred years ago, and so, in fact, some have said, how can we know the original intent? All that's lost, as if, uh, history stopped and no one has any way of investigating history if it's more than a generation or so back. That's foolish, of course, and I'm sure Mr. Brennan wouldn't say anything really like that seriously. But that becomes a real problem when we come to biblical studies, because we are seeking to interpret documents that are not a couple of hundreds of years old, but thousands of years old, a couple of thousand years so far as the New Testament's concerned.
So hermeneutics is very important. We also pointed out that the Reformers, probably the finest biblical students for many centuries, uh, through the medieval ages, the late, uh, ages of the early church, they established and generally supported the idea of a grammatical historical method of interpretation. That is, we look at the history that lies back of the documents and of the times, then we interpret according to the grammar and syntax of those documents. And if our interpretation agrees with the grammar and syntax and is harmonious with what we know of the historical background of them, that's the interpretation that we should follow.
And further, the Reformers generally followed the method that Scripture is its own interpreter. As I mentioned, one of the Latin terms that was very prominent was scriptura sui ipsius inter pres, or Scripture is the interpreter of it itself, or Scriptura ex Scriptura explicanda est, Scripture is to be explained by Scripture. That's a fundamental principle in the understanding of Scripture. We pointed out that the Reformers essentially said, since Scripture is the interpreter of scripture, and scripture is authored by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who moved upon the authors of scripture to give us the word of God, that the Holy Spirit speaking in the scriptures is the ultimate standard of what God is saying in his word.
The Holy Spirit speaking in the scriptures. Now that's a principle that should apply to all of us, and even when we disagree over what we feel the Holy Spirit is speaking through the scriptures, we ought to agree with that principle. And, uh, that principle is the foundation upon which anyone ought to approach the word of God. Then we launched into discussion of evangelical hermeneutics. We discussed the grammatico-historical theological method, and, uh, incidentally, at that term theological, I have taken the liberty of adding for this reason. Generally, people will say, yes, we follow a grammatico-historical method of interpretation, but that does not recognize the fact that the Bible is a unique book.
Sure, we should approach the Bible as we approach any book that is written, that is, it has grammar, it has syntax, but there's something extra in the Bible that is of importance, and it is this: the Bible, by its own affirmation, is a book of dual authorship. Now, the ultimate author is the Lord, but the agents by whom the Word of God has come to us are the human authors of the Word of God. So it's called the Word of God, but at the same time, it's the Word of God that comes to us through men who were moved by the Holy Spirit, as Peter puts it.
So it's a unique number, it's a, it's a unique document, the scriptures looked at as a whole, or the scriptures are composed of unique documents. They are documents of dual authorship. And so there is an element in the understanding of the Bible that one does not find in the understanding of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, for that matter. So the grammatical historical theological method. We talked about lore or textual criticism, that one must practice textual criticism to come to conclusions regarding the precise text itself.
That involves Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek textual criticism. Grammatical and syntactical criticism involves understanding of the grammar of the text and the syntax of the text. If you're studying the original text, you have to know something about Hebrew grammar and Aramaic grammar and Greek grammar. If you're studying English texts, you must understand something about English grammar in order to understand them. And don't feel as if you are impoverished if you are looking only at the English text, because if you have two or three translations before you, I tried, tried to point this out, that if you have two or three translations before you, and you pay attention to them, and you notice the different ways in which a text may be read, because they will appear in translations.
Translators differ over interpretations of matters. You will, if you study the context carefully, you will almost always be able of yourself, even though you know no Greek or Hebrew, to come to the meaning of the text. Do not let anybody te- uh, tell you that if you don't know Greek or Hebrew, you cannot understand the Bible. That person doesn't really understand the Bible very well if he makes a statement like that, because you can understand the scriptures without Greek, without Hebrew. In fact, you can understand it better than a lot of people who know Greek and know Hebrew very well. One has only to, uh, pay attention to scholarly literature to see that.
Some people who understand the Bible about as poorly as anybody else write highly technical articles on certain portions of the Word of God. Higher criticism, we pointed out, is a legitimate form of study because it has to do with the sources of the biblical material, questions about authorship, questions about destination, questions about origin, and other questions of interest. Unfortunately, higher criticism has a bad name because the individuals who have specialized in this have largely been men who have been enamored of liberal theological principles. But there are individuals, conservative and sound in their theology, who give us worthwhile results of the study of higher criticism.
Then we discussed, uh, evangelical hermeneutics, prophecy, and typology, and we discussed the problem of prophecy, the problem of a dual hermeneutic. Let me explain what we were talking about. We're talking primarily here about dispensational hermeneutics. One of the claims of dispensational hermeneutics is that while we may agree on the grammatical historical method of interpretation, our opponents who represent covenant theology use a dual hermeneutic rather than a consistent one hermeneutic.
And we discussed that. We tried to point out that, uh, the basis of that particular claim, the basis of basis of it is simply this, uh, dispensationalists claim that the proper method is the grammatical historical method of interpretation. Covenant men, generally speaking, say the same thing, but when covenant men interpret the prophetic word, they will add, in addition to the grammatical historical method of interpretation according to dispensationalists, another kind of hermeneutics, a hermeneutics involving the spiritualization of the text.
Now, we tried to point out that spiritual- spiritualization of the text is the taking of a passage that, in its historical context, referred to, say, the nation Israel, and then in a different context, the New Testament context, taking passages that referred to the nation Israel in the Old Testament and applying them to the Christian church in the present age or the context of the New Testament. I gave you one illustration from Acts chapter fifteen in which the tabernacle of David in the Old Testament would seem to be a, a figurative expression of the rebuilding of the Davidic kingdom, but in the New Testament, some interpreters have taken that to be the Christian church.
And, uh, the term David is now related to the Christian church, and uh, tabernacle, of course, is a figurative expression, as uh, as one can see from just reflecting upon it. Let me give you one other illustration. In Galatians chapter six and verse sixteen, the Apostle Paul writes this. He says, as many as walk according to this rule, peace be upon them and upon the Israel of God. Now, verse sixteen of Galatians chapter six is really very s- simple and straightforward.
As many as shall walk according to this rule. Well, he's just mentioned the new creation. That's the rule, the rule of the new creation. There is little disagreement over that. Peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. But because some people think that the term Israel is a term for the church, you will find translated in some of our evangelical versions this text this way. As many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them and mercy, even upon the Israel of God.
Now, by that rendering, the term Israel of God is taken as in opposition with the preceding them, and therefore, since that clearly has to do with the Christian church, then the Israel of God is a term for the Christian church. Now, I don't have time to talk about this, but that interpretation cannot be substantiated exegetically, it cannot be substantiated grammatically, and it cannot be substantiated philologically. If that were true, this would be the only place in all of the scriptures that the term Israel refers to the church.
In other words, in every other case, the term Israel refers to Israelites, ethnic Israelites. Now, I know there are two, three other passages that are debated. Don't misunderstand me. I've just written a twenty-page technical paper on this particular thing in which I called upon the New International Version to retranslate and correct the translation at this point. I have, uh, made reference to this before in these studies. But, uh, while there are some, to my mind, rather feeble attempts to support this idea from other places. When we look at the mass of the usage of the term Israel in all of scripture, you can see that the mass of the evidence stands solidly on taking the term Israel as ethnic Israel.
It's very simple to understand if you read the epistle to the Galatians through a half a dozen times, and you find out the persons that Paul has in mind are the Judaizers who have come in after him, Jewish professing believers who have come in and have sought to teach the Galatian Gentile Christians that they ought to be circumcised in order to be saved. That's what they were being taught. Now, the apostle writes a very harsh letter, as you know, he doesn't even give thanksgiving, as he usually does in Galatians for his readers. And at the end he says, I have written this with my own hand, which was contrary to his practice.
That was a way by which he sought to show them, I'm really concerned over this. I wrote this with my own scrawling, sprawling hand. And, uh, he said, you see with what large letters I have written this in my own hand? He usually used an amanuensis or a secretary. So, what was he doing at the conclusion of the epistle? Well, he was saying after this very harsh letter, there are believing Israelites who have not succumbed to the false teaching of the Judaizers. They are Israelites, but they are the Israel of God. They are true believing Israelites, members of the Christian church, who have not succumbed to the doctrine that one must be circumcised in order to be saved.
It's a marvelous climactic conclusion of the Epistle to the Galatians. And if you have any question about Paul using that particular idea in Romans eleven, remember, when he's talking about these same questions, he says, even in the present season, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. The remnant is the remnant of the Israel of God, believing Israelites. But now, if we were to take the term Israel as a reference to the church, then that would be, to my mind, a violation of grammatico-historical method of interpretation.
So we talked about that. I tried to say this, however, dispensationalists, to my mind, have been wrong in accusing many of the covenant people of practicing a dual hermeneutic. Oh, it's true, maybe in a few little places they do, but they do have a reason for saying what they say, and what they say is essentially this, and the principle is correct. What a covenant theologian will say with reference to hermeneutics is, if you apply the grammatical historical method of interpretation to the text of scripture, you will find that the writers of scripture do spiritualize.
So, you see, the point is they are applying the same principle, and maybe we shouldn't accuse them of a dual hermeneutic, but just a different understanding of the results of the application of the hermeneutic of grammatical, historical, theological method of interpretation. Strictly speaking, what it all comes down to, in my opinion, and this is my opinion, is that both practice the same kind of hermeneutic, but in the case of covenantal interpretation, there is the claim that the New Testament interpretation of the Old Testament supports the idea of spiritualization by grammatical historical study of scripture.
Dispensationalists and others, not simply dispensationalists, on and others, on the other hand, affirm that it is not supported by a study of the interpretation of the Old Testament in the New Testament. In other words, the issue resolves into how does the New Testament use the Old Testament, or how do the writers of scripture use scripture? Do they practice the principle of spiritualization? In my opinion, they don't. And so in this particular instance, I would come down on the side of the dispensationalists. But there are some passages that are problems.
Even if I could be shown that I was correct, if, for example, an angel from heaven should stand by me and say, Lewis, you're right, uh, about that. Uh, I would still acknowledge that there are passages that are questions, and, uh, if we had a, a course for about six years, we could talk about all of the use of the Old Testament and the New Testament, but you would be even sleepier than you have become now. So let us, uh, go on from that point. I mentioned the problem of reinterpretation, and that many evangelicals today have sought to take the position because they find difficulty in understanding how the New Testament writers interpret the Old Testament.
Have you ever had that difficulty? Or maybe some of you have never bothered to look at the Old Testament when you read a citation from the New Testament in one of the New Testament texts. Well, sometimes start doing that. Read the Epistle to the Romans, and when Paul says, as it stands written, go back and look at the context of the passage in the Old Testament and see if you can see the principle that Paul sees in that passage, which he applies in his New Testament epistles. And you'll find there are some very, very, uh, hard things, and, uh, one must study this rather intently and finally come up with, uh, a kind of, uh, analysis of the texts in which you may, uh, put in a form by which someone would be helped in understanding the Bible.
You will find texts are used analogically. You will find texts are used as simple predictions and fulfillment. You will find some texts that are used typologically. That is, in the Old Testament, a passage refers to David, which establishes a certain principle that is applied to Christ in the New Testament because David is a legitimate type of Christ. And, uh, you will find various other principles. We don't have time to talk. There are probably eight to ten of these principles that one uncovers in the study of the use of scripture by the authors of scripture. And they don't tell us, now this is fulfilled typologically, or this is fulfilled predictively, or this is fulfilled analogically.
That's something we have to, uh, come to by analyzing the use that they make of scripture. You might say, well, why is that? Well, the reason for it's very simple. The authors of scripture were all Calvinists. That's right, they were. They were all Calvinists. Some of you, I know, are very upset over that, but it's true. It's true. But anyway, uh, I was just kidding you. They're all Calvinists in this sense. They believe that everything comes to pass according to the will of God. All things work, God works all things according to the counsel of his will.
So, all of human history, and particularly all of the salvation history, is overseen by a sovereign God. Therefore, all of the things in scripture particularly, but this is true of all things, but all of the things in scripture particularly come to pass according to the divine purpose. Therefore, when we say it's fulfilled, we don't have to ask how or why. We may, if we want to investigate more, we'll say, well, I think the reason the Holy Spirit says this is because this is a typical use of the Old Testament, but all things are in accordance with his will.
David came on the scene according to the will of God. David did the things that he did, which are recorded in Scripture, according to the will of God. All of these things are. Therefore, they read scripture as if it were given us by a sovereign God. So they didn't find it necessary to say this is fulfilled typically, or this is fulfilled, uh, by direct prediction. Both types of fulfillment are part of the sovereign plan and purpose of God. Took me a long time to learn that. See, I've given it to you in just a few minutes, but I'll tell you, it took me ten years to learn that after I was doing Greek exegesis for theological students, leading them through the Greek text of the books of the New Testament, and puzzling myself when I came to some of those passages.
How did the New Testament author get that force and sense out of that Old Testament passage? I was always looking for fulfillment by predictive, predictive fulfillment, and I discovered typological fulfillment, analogical fulfillment, and various other things that were perfectly harmonious once I learned the principle of God controlling history according to his divine will and purpose. It's very true. You read the Bible that way, and you will understand a whole lot more about it. Now, we want to say just a word about typology, because typology is one of the questions that we will face in the interpreting of the Bible.
The problem of typology is largely that of a misunderstanding of it. Oh, I should have said this. I'm sorry, I'm doing this without any notes, and sometimes you're not always as scientific as you would like to be. I was leading up to reinterpretation, suggesting to you that the principle of the New Testament author reinterpreting the Old Testament and finding something in it that was not really in the Old Testament is not a valid principle, and people think that reinterpretation is, in my opinion, again, my opinion, because they haven't studied sufficiently the contexts of the passages of the Old Testament.
If so, they wouldn't follow the principle that the New Testament author found something in the Old Testament that wasn't there. It's always there, but sometimes we have difficulty finding it, and particularly until you learn some of these principles. Furthermore, if you do say the New Testament reinterprets the Old Testament, finding something there, uh, that is not really there, then you have some serious problems with the doctrine of the inspiration of scripture. In effect, you're saying the writers of the Old Testament did not really understand what they were talking about, and in fact, say things that the New Testament writers, and the New Testament writers find truth there that they didn't really say.
And that poses very, very severe problems in believing that scripture is truly and fully the word of God. Now, the problem with typology is largely that, to my mind, of a misunderstanding of it, leading to an overemphasis or underemphasis of it in biblical study. Now, we reject, I reject bizarre typology. The two wings of the great eagle in Revelation twelve thirteen are probably not the US Air Force's Phantom jets. Ezekiel's vision of the living creatures and wheels probably do not refer to UFOs manned by the cherubim, as Mr.
Weber from Oklahoma City likes to say sometimes over his radio program. On the other hand, Bishop Morris's position was almost as absurd, namely that nothing in the Old Testament is typical unless the New Testament declares it to be so. Well, that is obviously a, a kind of pronouncement that doesn't really have any support at all from actual study of the instances of the use of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Let me briefly point out a few important things. First of all, the term type, tupos is the Greek term, the term type suggests, the usage of it suggests that it does not have a technical sense at all.
Sometimes people like to wrestle over whether something is a type or not a type, but simply an example. But there is no such need to do that. The term type is not a technical term at all. It's a word that simply means an example or a pattern. If you look up all of the instances of tupos, type in the New Testament, sometimes it's rendered by ensample, you will discover it's not a technical term at all. It means simply an example. That's all. That's what a type is. It's a means by which certain truth is illustrated. It's an example.
Typology is the study of spiritual correspondences between persons, events, and things within the historical framework of divine revelation. Let me repeat it again, because this is the important, I think, an important thing to keep in mind. Typology is the study of the spiritual correspondence between persons, David, a type of Christ, Adam, a type of Christ, and so on. Events, the Exodus of the Old Testament, the historical, physical Exodus is illustrative of the spiritual Exodus of a believer through the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and things.
The tabernacle was illustrate- illustrative of certain New Testament truths. So, spiritual correspondences between persons, events, and things within the historical framework of Revelation. Lying at its base, as I mentioned a minute ago, is the conviction that God controls history and that there is a consistency in his d- in his dealings with men. R. T. France, an amillennial interpreter, a man who has spent a good bit of time in the study of this particular area, has, I think, something very true to say about this. He says, New Testament typology is thus essentially the tracing of the constant principles of God's working in history, revealing a recurring rhythm in past history, which is taken up more fully and perf- perfectly in the gospel events.
Tracing of the constant principles of God's working in, in history. The two great ideas of typology are these. Historicity, that is, the event that is typical is a part of history, and the antitype, the fulfillment of it is, or a further development of it, is an historical event, person, or thing as well. Historicity and correspondence. That is, it is a reflection of the fact that God operates according to the principles of the nature of his being, and he operates in the same way in Old Testament times as he does in the New Testament times because he's the eternal, immutable God, and he does not change.
A type is not a prediction, nor is an antitype the fulfillment of a prediction. It's rather the re-embodiment of a principle which has been previously exemplified in the type. A prediction looks forward to and demands an event which is to be its fulfillment. Typology, however, consists essentially in looking back and discerning previous examples of a pattern now reaching its culmination. Exegesis is a prerequisite of typology, but typology is not a method of exegesis. Typology is the theological interpretation of the Old Testament history as it is exegetically set out.
In other words, when you do typology, what you are doing is looking at the Old Testament and finding the evidences and examples of God's working, which are in accordance with his nature as he is revealed in scripture, and which find recurring fulfillment during the process of human history, finding, of course, a great climax in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, but, uh, there is evidence that certain types will only be fulfilled ultimately at the second advent of the Lord Jesus and in the kingdom that follows. Exege- uh, typology is a valid biblical study necessary to biblical interpretation, and that's clear to almost all responsible interpreters of the Bible.
There is nothing in typology contrary to the grammatical historical method of interpretation. So when you say this is a type of this, don't feel that you have to apologize for it. Sometimes in our theological schools, because some individuals have engaged in bizarre exegesis and engaged in bizarre typology and caused typology to have a bad name, sometimes people hesitate to even use the term type. Let me assure you, biblical scholars know better. They use the term type because you cannot understand the Bible if you don't understand typology.
It is a significant part of the Word of God. Now we come to, uh, evangelical hermeneutics, allegory, and spiritualization. With allegory, we come to something a little different. Capital A, allegory in the Bible. An allegory is a fiction that teaches a moral truth. Perhaps the clearest illustration is one I think I mentioned last week, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. That is a lengthy allegory. It's not history, but it is a story which is designed to illustrate a number of spiritual truths.
All of those characters in Bunyan, marvelous unfolding of aspects of Christian life and thinking, and the events through which Christian passes illustrate great truths. Christians generations ago made Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress reading right by the side of the Bible. That's one reason why we are deficient in some of our theology. Bunyan was a very fine teacher of Christian theology, and you would be profited if you would not only read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, but if you really became acquainted with it.
If you've read much of Mr. Spurgeon, you know it was one of his favorite books, which he read over and over and over again. And if you read his sermons, those characters in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress appear in his sermons over and over again, because people in the audience were familiar with them. They knew about those characters, and they knew about the events, and they were marvelous illustrations of the particular passage that Mr. Spurgeon was expounding. There is very little allegory in the Bible, and none in the New Testament. Now, I know that a person might say, well, what about Galatians chapter four and verse twenty four?
Now, that is a rather interesting passage, and I would be the first to grant that it is. And there are one or two things about it that I don't understand yet. I hope I understand them before I get to heaven, but time is growing short, and so, uh, I have to apply myself more, more directly to this. But I've, you know, uh, the first commentary I ever wrote on the Greek text of the book of the Bible was done on Galatians as a graduate student. I wrote a commentary on the Greek text of the Epistle of the Galatians, and then later on taught this epistle a number of times at the Theological Seminary, exegeting the Greek text. I understand a whole lot more about it now than I did then, but, uh, some things about this particular passage that are not easy.
And one of the statements that, uh, puzzled me for a little fi- while was the statement in verse twenty four where Paul says, which things are alegarumena. Now that's the Greek word. That's a participle. Alegarumena. Now you can see, if I just pronounce that a few times, knowing no Greek, you'll recognize that's the word from which we get allegory. And some people have sought to translate this, therefore, which things are being allegorized, because the English term allegory is derived from the Greek word.
That's a simple philological mistake to make, that is, that a word's meaning is determined by its root. A word's meaning is always determined by the usage of the term. That's why when a person says, now this term is made up of these two roots, which mean such and such, and then begins to interpret a passage based on the meaning of the roots of the word, he might be right sometime. There are a few cases where that's true, but he also might be very wrong, because words change meanings through usage. If I say, for example, Elijah was a neat prophet.
Now, you wouldn't think, would you, that I s- that Elijah was a person who was careful to have no specks of food on his clothes or anything like that, and he never had anything but a crease in his pants and, uh, was generally clean and well coiffed or whatever you might say. No, you know the term neat has come to have a new meaning, even in our time. Neat, a great prophet, very interesting prophet, great prophet. That's the way the kids use the term. Now we use it, neat prophet. So terms derive their meaning from usage. Now, this particular term, which things are being allegorized, should never have been translated that way.
Modern scholarship agrees. I'm not giving you something unique. This is a term for typology. Which things are being allegorized? That's what Paul does here. He takes this incident in Genesis twenty one and he speaks of it as a typical incident. Why? Well, because allegory, by definition, is non-historical, but Paul is talking about historical events that are recorded in Genesis twenty one. Now, there are lots of fine points about this, and I just read a, a book on Old Testament interpretation. In fact, I've got a chapter so to finish the book.
It's a recent one, written in nineteen eighty four. In, uh, this particular book, this author contends that while it's characteristic of allegory to be non-historical, it's not necessarily so. But then he has no illustrations of that, and in fact, the only illustration that I can possibly find is an illustration not of allegory, but what I would call typology, maybe a not so very obvious one, an unusual one, but I think it's fair to say that allegory is non-historical. But Paul is talking about historical events. So this word should be translated typologically interpreted.
For example, Bishop Lightfoot, a long time ago, offers a comment that's typical. He says, allegoria, Saint Paul uses allegoria, that's the noun, here much in the same sense as he uses type, not denying the historical truth of the narrative, but superposing a secondary meaning. In other words, Paul looked at the incident recorded in Genesis, and then he saw that as typical of important truths. And finally, of course, as you know, the important truth that he saw in it had to do with law and grace. And that's why he winds up the section by saying, wherefore, brethren, we are not children of the bondmaid, but we are children of the free.
And since we're not children of the bondmaid, we're not under the law as a code. We are free. Therefore, stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ, Christ has made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Don't put yourself back under the Old Testament law, as Israel was then. Read Galatians through, and I don't think you'll have a whole lot of thing, difficulty with it. The closest thing to allegory in the New Testament is Paul's use of Deuteronomy twenty five four in First Corinthians nine eight through ten. and, uh, some of you know I've written a chapter in a little book of lectures on that particular use of the Old Testament, in which I show that that is not allegory at all, but rather a treatment, again, of a passage analogically.
Now, symbolism in the Bible. I want to try to give you a few minutes to ask questions. Symbolism in the Bible. It's generally recognized that scientific procedures are to be observed in the interpretation of figures of speech, correct identification of them, identifying the function of them, identifying the meaning of a figure, and so in biblical symbols. When you look at the symbols of the Bible, it's necessary to analyze them carefully, see the way in which scripture has used them, and seek to come to an interpretation of their meaning. The book of Revelation is a book in which the author tells us right at the beginning that this is a book that contains signals, uh, symbols.
In fact, in chapter one, verse one, in the use of the term signified, in that very first verse, we have the Greek verb from which we get the English, from which we get the noun semeion, which means sign, used by John in his gospel of the events that our Lord performed in his life, which had spiritual meaning, symbols. Now, to have a symbol is in perfect harmony with grammatical historical method of interpretation, because truth may be expressed either directly or indirectly. So literary style or form does not affect the truth or falsity of the content.
The headline, Crimson Tide swamps the volunteers. That may be obscure to the less fanatical, but it makes excellent sense to a University of Alabama football fan. And in fact, even some of those individuals who criticize, uh, some people for seeing symbolism in the Bible might understand that. If we see longhorns corral mustangs, or that wouldn't go too well, but, uh, uh, something else, we can make excellent sense out of that, and those symbolic ways of expressing things refer to specific historical events.
So symbolism is just a different literary style for saying something. And finally, spiritualization in the Bible. Debate continues over this, the amillennialists and the historical premillennialists, not quite so radically, being in the forefront of the opposition. But I just do not believe that spiritualism, spiritualizing, spiritual symbolism does, spiritualizing exists in the scriptures. But this can only be answered by what I said last week, suggested by Greg Bonson's terms, by hand-to-hand combat over the exegesis of individual texts.
We cannot settle this by general statements. We must look at this text, and this text, and this text, and this text, and after we've looked at the way scripture uses the Old Testament, reach our conclusion. Now, there are a lot of people, now you're going to think I'm very arrogant when I say this, but it's true. There are a lot of people who talk a lot about this, who have not investigated the use of the Old Testament and the New Testament in scripture, but I have. Now, I don't say that I've investigated every place, because it would be a lifelong, long study, but for twenty five years, I have studied the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, taught five courses in that subject, five different courses in that subject in theological seminaries.
What I had in that little book of six lectures represents six of a uh hundred and fifty lectures that I've given on that topic. In fact, I've given more than that, but a hundred and fifty lectures that I have worked out on that topic. So I am speaking from experience. I may be wrong, but I'm speaking from experience. I have sought to look at these texts, but there are a lot of people who pronounce upon them who've not looked at those texts, many of whom pronounce upon them cannot even read Greek or Hebrew, do not even know how to look at the Septuagint or the, uh, Syriac or the various other types of texts that must be looked at in the analysis of the use of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
And I don't say that I'm right. A man may, may of course look at these things and come to the wrong conclusions, but that's the first thing that a person ought to do before he speaks with certainty. I just don't think that spiritualization exists in the Bible. There does exist analogy, and occasionally analogy is very close to what some people think of as spiritualization, but analogy is really a good bit different, and, uh, as we go along, we will be able to see, I think, some of that. Let me conclude. The ultimate solution of these questions rests in the use of scripture by the authors of scripture, and it's to be hoped that the evangelical church, and you particularly, will get on with the job of discovering the way in which the Bible uses scripture.
I think that there will result from this a more evident sense of the continuity between the testaments. This continuity is often blurred in both premillennial and amillennial thought. The premillennialists have often failed to see that there's continuity in the divine program of the ages, continuity in the people of God, in the promised program. Amillennialists have often failed to see the promises and the fulfillment literally in history. So our job is to continue to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking in scripture. May the Lord help us all to study the scriptures in that way.
Now we have just five minutes, I'm sorry, but next week, if we finish our study early, you can come back and ask any questions about this, but maybe we have just a few questions that you'd like to ask. I'll try to answer them if I can hear them. Yes, Bob. Is there a term used for interpreting? Is there a what? Is there a term used for interpreting the New Testament relationship with the Old? Is there a term for that? There's no term but the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament. It's the study of the citations or quotations and allusions.
When one studies this, you don't study simply the quotations or citations, you study the quotations and the allusions of the, from the Old Testament in the New Testament. That's... No, analogy is a particular form of the use of a passage from the Old Testament in the New Testament. You could talk about a comparison of the texts, if you like, but the term that is commonly used by people is the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament. And since also you have the use of the Old Testament in the Old Testament, because some of the later writers in the Old Testament times use earlier writing, like Moses.
Moses' writings will appear in Isaiah, for example. Zechariah uses Isaiah. And then in the New Testament, we have John in the book of Revelation citing and using symbols, not simply from the Old Testament, but also from our Lord's Olivet Discourse. So probably it's just better to say the use of scripture by the authors of scripture. That's what it is. I'm sorry I can't give you any particular term, but that's the common term, is the use. The most common way in which scholars speak of this study is the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament. Now, Bob, you look like you're still a little puzzled.
Is that, is that the grammatical historical theological method of sort? The grammatical historical method is the general hermeneutical method. This is a special application of it to the use of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Now, you see, you grammatical historical method may be applied to the study of Moses, the study of the prophets, the study of the gospels, the study of the Pauline epistles, and so on. That would be more, that's inclusive of all interpretation, the method of interpreting. But the other is an area of study in which the application of hermeneutics is made to that particular sphere of study.
Does that help? Yes, Randy. Speak loud enough so I can hear. As this class proceeds, will you deal with some of the specific verses that are disputed and show exactly how it is understood as an analogy and how those who understand it as a spiritualization do that, and they make a clear distinction between the two individual verses that are disputed. Ren, if I, if I did that, as you probably can see, what we would be doing would be here for ten years, because there are, there are three hundred texts that are cited in the New Testament, specifically cited with introductory formula.
There are literally hundreds and hundreds of other passages which are not introduced by introductory formulae, but clearly are allusions to the Old Testament, even down to a couple of words, and sometimes only one word. So, no, I cannot, don't have time to do that, but if you want to come to me about a specific passage, giving me a little time ahead of time so I look over my notes on it, because I don't carry everything in my head, uh, or at every moment, you know. I would be glad to discuss any of them, and I will tell you the ones that puzzle me.
There are a few that still puzzle me, but, uh, if you're looking for passages over which there is debate, uh, some of them I can, you know, I deal with that in theological seminary when you're dealing with, uh, a different subject, but this is the divine purpose of the ages, so I don't want to get bogged down on that because, as I say, it would take weeks and weeks. You're the kind of person that are interested in those details, and that's, that's a good point. Let me suggest some books for you to read. If you want to read, uh, a beginning approach would be R. V. G. Tasker, T-A-S-K-E-R, and it's something like the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Uh, something a little more complicated would be, uh, Earl Ellis's, uh, The Use of the Old Testament in Paul. I think he calls Paul's Use of the Old Testament. Uh, one also very, um, very capably done is done by Robert Gundry. It's Matthew's Use of the Old Testament. Those are, those are volumes in which just certain areas of this study are studied and worked out, and I'd suggest you, you know, you begin to do some of that studying. You can do it. You have the ability to do that. Well, our time is up, uh, so let's close with a word of prayer.
Father, we are grateful to thee for the privilege of study, and we know, Lord, that this has been rather heavy. We pray that our understanding of scripture has been helped, and perhaps we pray, Lord, that some of the issues that lie before us may have been unfolded a bit to encourage us to dig more deeply into thy word. Help us to do it fairly.