Conference: 2003 Pre-Trib Study Group
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Introduction
Thirty plus years ago I accepted aseries of random classes to teach at several colleges in the greater San Josearea. In each situation I alwaysstarted with the subject matter of the course at hand and took the thinkingback to biblical principles. Afterthe classes there were always several students who would want to discuss theirinterests further. One suchstudent, after expressing his appreciation for the lecture, asked if he couldget an appointment with me to rap. I was glad for the opportunity and agreed upon a time and place. We were both on time and immediatelygot into a heavy discussion which necessitated bringing quotations from otherauthorities to our aid.
When I called forth help from theApostle Paul, however, he objected saying, "Well, there are many differentinterpretations of that." Noweven though I had only been teaching hermeneutics for a few years then, itstill brought up my ire when someone departed from common sense, to use suchlame and irresponsible argumentation. Thus I responded, "Wait just a minute. You asked me to get togetherto wrap and I don't see any presents to wrap or any wrapping paper or ribbonwith which to wrap them. Now Idon't know how we are going to wrap without presents or wrapping paper.
He looked at me like I had lost mymind saying, "Well, that's not what I meant," to which I responded,"But there are many different meanings to what you said. Now let's wrap!" Totally frustrated, he said, "Wecan't even continue this discussion." "You are exactly right," I responded. "We cannot continue until I amwilling to understand what you meant by what you said. There are not many meanings to what yousaid. Only one! And if I refuse to find out yourmeaning for what you said, intelligent communication comes to a halt. We cannot go on further until I amwilling to understand the single sense you have in mind by what you havesaid. And I am simply insistingthat you allow the Apostle Paul the same privilege that you are expecting. There are not many differentinterpretations. There may beforty suggested interpretations for that verse but I guarantee you thatthirty-nine of them are wrong and maybe all forty. There is one, and only one, interpretation of any passage ofscripture."
And, dear friends, that is thebottom line in understanding any communication. And there is no more abusedprinciple in the history of interpretation of the Word of God than theprinciple of the single sense. Whether by ignorance or design, great harm hasbeen brought to the cause of Christ by the use of sensus plenior or multiplesenses. E. D. Hirsch is right on target in stating "if the meaning of atext is not the author's, then no interpretation can possibly correspond to themeaning of the text."[1] Indeed, it amounts to the banishment ofthe author and, in the case of the scripture, therefore, the elimination of itsauthority which is supplanted by the reader. The Basic Principle of Interpretation
Biblical Beginnings ofHermeneutics. At the risk ofbeing unduly rudimentary, allow me to review some very well-known biblicalbeginnings of the art and science of hermeneutics. Almost 600 years before Christ, the Jewish people were takencaptive by the Babylonians. Theirreturn under the Persians was in three stages led by Zerubbabel (538 B.C.),Ezra (458 B.C.), and Nehemiah (444 B.C.), under whom the city wall was rebuilt. In the process of the decades in theBabylonian captivity, the Jews ceased speaking Hebrew and spoke Aramaic; thus,this created a language gap between themselves and their Scriptures. So when the people stood in the opensquare before the Water Gate within the rebuilt city wall, they asked Ezra theScribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses to read to them. Also, the Levites circulated among thepeople to help them understand what Ezra was reading. Nehemiah records: "So they read distinctly from thebook, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understandthe reading"(Neh. 8:8). Rammexplains: "It was the task of Ezra to give the meaning of the Scripturesby paraphrasing the Hebrew into the Aramaic or in other ways expounding thesense of the Scriptures. This isgenerally admitted to be the first instance of Biblical hermeneutics."
That which was true of Ezra thescribe in the Hebrew scriptures is also true in the Greek source of our Englishword hermeneutics as used by Luke in recording the practice of Jesus with thedisciples on the Road to Emmaus: "And beginning at Moses and all theProphets, He expounded {Ep.tvth4 [4]to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself' (Luke 24:27). All of the Bible has Christ as the apexof revelation; thus, everything in the Hebrew scriptures, whether the Law, theProphets or the Writings, ultimately has Christ as its focus. He is the Alpha and the Omega. Everything in the Old Testament waspreparatory for Him and everything in the New Testament, following the Gospels,is explanatory of Him. The Gospelsare the epitome of God's special written revelation of Christ.
Stewardship of the SpecialRevelation. When Mosesapproached the end of the writing of the Pentateuch, including the blessingsand curses determined by obedience or lack of it, he wrote: The secret thingsbelong to the Lord our God, butthose things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, thatwe may do all the words of this law" (Dt. 29:29). In essence, God says, "It's yours.I'm trusting you with it. Nowmanage it well." Thisstatement of Moses with respect to the stewardship of the Law is parallel toPaul's announcement that "you have heard of the dispensation (oiKovb.to)of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation Hemade known to me the mystery . . . which in other ages was not made known tothe sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostlesand prophets. . . ." (Eph. 3:2-5).
To be the recipient of therevelation of God is a stupendous privilege. And privilege begets responsibility. Thus, Paul says to the Corinthians: "Let a man so consider us, asservants of Christ and stewards (oiKovbj.Iol) of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewardsthat one be found faithful" (1 Cor. 4:2). Thus, he admonishes his understudy, Timothy, to "Bediligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to beashamed, rightly dividingthe word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15). Little wonderthat James (likely the half-brother of Jesus) warns: "My brethren, let not many of you become teachers,knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment" (James 3:1). Yes, privilege begets responsibilityand the greater the privilege, thegreater the responsibility. We understand, then, why the agedApostle John gives the final warning in the Scripture: "I testify to everyone who hearsthe words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God shall addto him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes awayfrom the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part fromthe tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.
The Entrance of "Adding andSubtracting": The ink hadscarcely dried on the vellum before Satan began enticing God's servants totamper with His holy word. It shouldn't surprise us, however, since that wasprecisely the strategy he used to immerse mankind in sin. "Has God indeed said? "We still hear the arch deceivertoday! "Surely, there must bea deeper, more spiritual meaning than the crass, literal meaning of thetext." And, yet, it seemed sopietistic in the beginning rationale. The literary culprit I am referring to is allegorical interpretationwhich really results in the banishment of the author in its practice ofmultiple meanings (something that flourishes in a less formal way, more than wewould like to admit, in many current bible studies and sermons). Though it wasn't invented by Origen ofthe Alexandrian School (ca. 185-254), his three-fold meaning (literal, moral,and spiritual/allegorical) through his great learning and magnetic personalitycertainly popularized it. For himthe literal meaning was simply the immature or carnal level for theunsophisticated but to rise to the moral meaning and hopefully to the hiddenspiritual meaning (allegorical), for those who had been truly initiated, was toachieve greatness.
Not everyone bought into the charmedmethod of Origen, however. Whilehis "fantasy unlimited"[6]thrived in Alexandria, the church leaders in Antioch of Syria,
"It has been said that the first Protestant school ofhermeneutics flourished in the city of Antioch of Syria, and had it not beencrushed by the hand of orthodoxy for its supposed heretical connections withthe Nestorians, the entire course of Church history might have beendifferent. The Christian communitywas influenced by the Jewish community and the result was a hermeneuticaltheory which avoided the letterism ofthe Jews and the allegorism ofthe Alexandrians. It boasted ofsuch names as Lucian, Dorotheus, Diodorus, Theodore of Mopsuestia andChrysostom. As a school itinfluenced Jerome and modulated the allegorism of Alexandria in the West. It also had an influence on medievalexegesis, and found itself again in the hermeneutics of the Reformers.
The Syrian school fought Origen in particular as the inventorof the allegorical method, and maintained the primacy of the literal andhistorical interpretation of the Scripture. It is true that in practice some of the Antiochenes werefound dipping into allegorizing, nevertheless in hermeneutical theory they tooka stout stand for literal and historical exegesis. They asserted that the literal was plain-literal andfigurative-literal. A plain-literalsentence is a straightforward prose sentence with no figures of speech init. 'The eye of the Lord is uponthee,' would be a figurative-literal sentence. According to the Alexandrians the literal meaning of thissentence would attribute an actual eye to God. But the Syrian school denied this to be the literal meaningof the sentence. The literalmeaning is about God's omniscience. In other words literalism is not the same as letterism. "[9]
In spite of all of the excellenciesattributed to the hermeneutical excellence of the School at Antioch by allwriters on the subject, they lost the battle for literal interpretation becauseof a chink in their armor,[10]on the one hand, and a great name, on the other hand, Augustine (354-430). Not only was he a leading theologianwith a great influence on the church for centuries and a primary influence onJohn Calvin, but he became the father of amillennialism. But notice the event that turned thetide for Augustine. Rammstates: "Augustine was drivento the allegorical interpretation of Scripture by his own spiritual plight. It was the allegorical interpretationof Scripture by Ambrose which illuminated much of the Old Testament to him whenhe was struggling with the crass literalism of the Manicheans. He justifiedallegorical interpretation by a gross misinterpretation of 2 Cor. 3:6. He madeit mean that the spiritual or allegorical interpretation was the real meaning of the Bible; theliteral interpretation kills. Forthis experimental reason Augustine could hardly part with the allegoricalmethod."[11] In listing twelve controllingprinciples of Augustine, Ramm includes the following: " (ii) Although the literal andhistorical are not the end of Scripture we must hold them in high regard. Not all of the Bible is allegorical byany means, and much of it is both literal and allegorical. Augustine's greattheological works indicate that the literal method was employed far more thanhe admitted on paper. (iii)Scripture has more than one meaning and therefore the allegorical method isproper. The supreme test to see whethera passage was allegorical was that of love. If the literal made for dissension, then the passage was tobe allegorized. Besides this hehad seven other somewhat farfetched rules for allegorizing the Scripture. He did work on the principle that theBible had a hidden meaning, and so in his allegorical interpretations he wasfrequently as fanciful as the rest of the Fathers.[12]
At this point, I must issue thewarning that Lenski gave of the bad influence that the Apostle Peter had onBarnabas. Remarking on Galatians2:13, he states: "Barnabas isa warning to us. The church isfull of great names that are still constantly quoted in support of some falsedoctrine, false practice, false principle, false interpretation. Their very names stop lesser men fromtesting what they advocate and so they, like Barnabas are carried away" Clarification of the Basic Principle
The father of the English Bible,William Tyndale, gave a striking statement after fifteen hundred years ofwriters wandering in the wastelands of allegorical interpretation withpitifully little interruption. TheReformation leaders protested the medieval exegetes who, following Origen,regarded the literal sense of Scripture as unimportant and unedifying. With the sound of antiquity, WilliamTyndale declared: "Thou shaltunderstand, therefore, that the Scripture hath but one sense, which is theliteral sense. And that literalsense is the root and ground of all, and the anchor that never faileth,whereunto if thou cleave thou canst never err not go out of the way. And if thou leave the literal sense,thou canst not but go out of the way. Nevertheless, the Scripture uses proverbs, similitudes, riddles, orallegories, as all other speeches do; but that whichthe proverb, similitude,riddle, or allegory signifieth is ever the literal sense, which thou must seekout diligently."[14]
The latter part of Tyndale'sstatement concerning figures of speech has been the area where confusion hasabounded. Many statements havebeen made which give the impression that figures of speech are antithetical toliteral interpretation. ClarenceBass evidences this when he says, "Dispensationalists will not interpretthe obviously literal as literal, and the obviously symbolical assymbolical. Everything must beliteral."[15] Nor have dispensational writers helpedto alleviate the confusion when they say that "some Scriptures arecontextually indicated as containing figures of speech and not intended forliteral interpretation."[16] More accurate is the statement ofCharles Ryrie that "the use of figurative language does not compromise ornullify the literal sense of the thing to which it is applied. Figures of speech are a legitimategrammatical usage for conveying a literal meaning."[17] Behind every figure of speech is aliteral meaning, and by means of the historical-grammatical exegesis of thetext, these literal meanings are to be sought out. As Ramm states: "The literal meaning of the figurative expression is the proper ornatural meaning as understood by students of language. Whenever a figure is used its literalmeaning is precisely that meaning determined by grammatical studies offigures. Hence, figurative interpretationdoes not pertain to the spiritual or mystical sense of Scripture, but to theliteral sense."[18]
The Syrian school of interpretationin Antioch in the early centuries of the church asserted that literal interpretationis both plain-literal and figurative-literal. The plain-literal sentence is one of straightforward proseand a sentence such as "The eye of the Lord is upon thee" is afigurative-literal sentence.[19] According to the Alexandrians theliteral meaning of this sentence would attribute an actual eye to God. But the Syrian school denied this to bethe literal meaning of the sentence. The literal meaning is about God's omniscience. In other words, literalism is not thesame as letterism.
More recently Robert Mounce hassuggested similarly that "A writer may convey his thought either by theuse of words in their directly denotative sense or he may choose the morepleasing path of figurative expression. But one thing must be kept clear: In either case the literal meaning is the same.[20] Mounce goes on to say: "An interpretation is literal onlywhen it corresponds to what the author intends to convey with hisstatement. When Jesus spoke ofHerod as "That fox" (Luke 13:32) he was not trying to tell us that acarnivorous mammal of the family Canidaehad entered the human race incognito. He was only saying that the Galilean ruler was cunning, althoughrelatively insignificant.[21] In like manner we realize upon ourreading the statement of Jesus, "I am the door," that He is not a 2'8" x 6' 8" birch door, but He is that which the figure literallysignifies, namely, a way of entrance and, more specifically in the context, theWay of entrance into eternal life. The literal meaning is the intention of the metaphor.
Very often Isaiah 55:12 is set forthas sort of an "Achilles' heel" to those who hold the literal interpretation. Exultingly Isaiah speaks: "For youshall go out with joy and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hillsshall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shallclap their hands." Here thewriter is not speaking of that which would be an inherent contradiction, but heis marvelously portraying in word pictures that even all of nature shallrejoice when the king shall come to reign in his kingdom. By such a graphic word picture he hassaid more than could be said in several paragraphs of straight prose. Credibility of the Basic Principle
At this point a question needs to beraised: "When one applies this principle of literal interpretationconsistently to prophecy, what is the result?" A postmillennialist, Loraine Boettner, responds, "It isgenerally agreed that if the prophecies are taken literally, they do foretell arestoration of the nation of Israel in the land of Palestine with the Jewshaving a prominent place in that kingdom and ruling over the othernations." [22] An amillennialist, Floyd Hamiltonconcurred: "Now we mustfrankly admit that a literal interpretation of the Old Testament propheciesgives us just such a picture of an earthly reign of the Messiah as thepremillennialist pictures."[23]
But does such a consistently literalapproach to prophecy have any strong support in Scripture? The late professor of Old Testament atCalvin Theological Seminary, Martin J. Wyngaarden, in his study of the scope of"Spiritualization" in Scripture, begins his first chapter with the"Wonders of Jehovah's Prophecy". He asks the question, "Were any Old Testamentprophecies fulfilled literally?" and then proceeds;
Few things can so stimulate one's faith in the revelation ofGod as the fulfillments of prophecy. Here we have, first of all, those fulfilled in Christ's ministry, in hissacrifice and resurrection. Butthere are also many others fulfilled in the history of great cities and mightynations, in a most remarkable manner. The fulfillments are so precise, unmistakable, important andfar-reaching as to recall the words of Isaiah, addressed to those inclined toreject Jehovah's predictions (Isaiah 41:21, 22) . . . and then we find manyliteral fulfillments of prophecy, in connection with Israel as the theocraticnation, andin connection with the surrounding nations referred to by the prophetsserving under the theocracy-the Old Testament kingdom of Jehovah. Now the very remarkable thing isthat those fulfillments are so exceedingly literal.[24]
(One might mention in passing thatsomething cannot be "exceedingly" literal. It is either literal or not literal depending on whether itis the meaning of the author.)
After such a statement it isperplexing indeed to discover that Wyngaarden concluded that much of theprophecy which is yet to be fulfilled must be fulfilled in another way otherthan literally. As he looked tocertain unfilled prophecies he was convinced that there are those that must bespiritualized. "Even if weshould say that prophecies are fulfilled literally as a rule," he stated,"we find a series of exceptions to this rule, in the future state ofIsrael, in the eschatology of the theocracy, in the spiritualization of thekingdom of priests-the holy nation."[25] For these reasons, he concluded,"The problem thus raised is one of great interest, with a view towardattempting to discover the sphere in which the spiritualization of prophecytakes place."[26]
It would seem that, withouttheological predispositions, one would conclude that the prophecies which havebeen fulfilled are to form the pattern in the interpretation of prophecy thathas not yet been fulfilled. If wehave seen that so long as we have the history of the Jews to compare with theprophecies concerning them-that is, up to this time-a certain mode of interpretingthose prophecies is rendered indispensable, then why not simply continue thatsame mode of interpretation, when we have prophecy alone not yet illustrated byhistory? If prophecies concerningthe Jews, delivered two or three thousand years ago, be proved, by the historyof the interim up to our own days, to have been fulfilled in the literal sense,and, therefore, to demand a literal interpretation, upon what principle can itbe alleged that other prophecies, delivered in similar language by the sameprophets, are not to be similarly interpreted after our days?
The logic resulting from a study ofthe history of fulfillment is obvious. Why then would anyone depart fromit? Albertus Pieters states:"No one defends or employs the allegorizing method of exegesis. Calvin and the other great Biblestudents of the Reformation saw clearly that the method was wrong and taught anow generally accepted 'grammatical-historical' interpretation, so far as theScriptures in general are concerned. That they retain the spiritualizing [notice the word game] method inexpounding many of the prophecies was because they found themselves forced todo so in order to be faithful to the New Testament."[27]
One might question here whether itis faithfulness to the New Testament which forces this deductive principle ofspiritualization (i.e. allegorization), or whether it might more correctly bestated that it is faithfulness to a particular theological interpretation ofthe New Testament. If the latteris the case, then one might certainly question the wisdom of overthrowing theliteral interpretation which is a proven biblical principle, for the unprovendeductive principle of spiritualization.
At any rate the use of a dualhermeneutic which applies the literal hermeneutic to the great majority ofScripture and the spiritualizing hermeneutic to a portion of prophecy, namely, that portion which is futureonly and not even all of that, has its dangers. It is easy to see how such a method of interpretation couldeasily get out of hand. Forexample, while the evangelical believes that the prophecy of the second comingof Christ will have a future literal fulfillment, the liberal theologianapplying the spiritualizing principle erases any hope of a literal return ofthe Lord to the earth for his saints.
Because of this possibility,therefore, the evangelical who posits a dual hermeneutic protects its excessiveuse by certain regulative principles in addition to his deductivespiritualizing principle. Hamiltonstates: "But if we reject theliteral method of interpretation as the universal rule of the interpretation ofall prophecies, how are we to interpret them? Well, of course, there are many passages in prophecy thatwere meant to be taken literally. In fact a good working rule to follow is that the literal interpretationof the prophecy is to be accepted unless (a) the passages containobviouslyfigurative language, or (b ) unless the New Testament gives authority forinterpreting them in other than the literal sense, or (c) unless a literalinterpretation would produce a contradiction with truths, principles, orfactual statements contained in the non-symbolic books of the New Testament. .. .[28]
If one examines each of thesesuggested regulative principles carefully, he will discern that none of them isnecessitated by a proper understanding of literal interpretation. The Application of the Basic Principle
Literal interpretation, then, is the"bottom-line" of dispensationalism. Although certainly one would not claim absolute consistencyamong dispensationalists in the application of the principle, there are areasof unanimity among them which have become theological tenets in theirsystem. Undoubtedly, the mostsignificant of these is the maintaining of a distinction between Israel andthechurch. The roots of this go intwo directions, first, the Old Testament covenant promises to Abraham stated inGenesis 12:2-3 and established unconditionally in Genesis 15:6-21, and second,the New Testament revelation of the mystery of the church as established inActs 2:41-47 and explained in Ephesians 3:1-6. In the minds of dispensationalists it is the Abrahamiccovenantpromises-particularly the land and seed promises-that have sufferedmost from spiritualization in interpretation.
Presenting the logic of this verysimply, Ryrie asks two questions: "(1) Does the Abrahamic covenant promise Israel a permanentexistence as a nation? If it does,then the Church is not fulfilling Israel's promises, but rather Israel as anation has a future yet in prospect: and (2) Does the Abrahamic covenantpromise Israel permanent possession of the promised land? If it does, then Israel must yet comeinto possession of that land, for she has never fully possessed it in herhistory."[29] And, may I add, does not possess ittoday even though it was an everlasting possession.
One of the most probing recent workson this subject was done by one who would not likely be called adispensationalist, namely, Arnold A. VanRuler, the late Professor of DogmaticTheology at the University of Utrecht. In his work of 1955 translated in 1971by Geoffrey Bromiley, The Christian Church and the Old Testament, he states: "To the very depths of Old Testament expectation, the people ofIsrael as a people, the land, posterity, and theocracy play a role that cannotpossibly be eliminated. This rolecannot be altered by regarding Christ and his church as the fulfillment, inother words, by spiritualizing. There is a surplus in the Old Testament, a remnant that cannot be fittedinto the New Testament fulfillment."[30]
He continues: "I believe thatthe New Testament never says that the people of Israel. . . . is definitivelyrejected. It simply says that thepeople of Israelis blind and hardened and indeed with a view of a newdevelopment. This development hasan eschatological range: it contains the solution to the riddle of the world(Rom. 11:15).[31] May those who posit ReplacementTheology take note.
And then he raises the key question:
How are we, as the Christian church standing in the NewTestament in the light of God's act in Jesus Christ, to handle the OldTestament? . . . A renewal ofallegorizing may seem to offer a way of assigning an authentic function to theOld Testament in the Christian situation . . . . I believe that we must resist to the last the temptationlurking in this idea. The idea isin fact a temptation, for it seems that allegorizing can solve all the problemsof the Christian church in relation to the Old Testament. . . . (It) gives the appearance of making itperfectly plain that the Old Testament is wholly and exclusively the book ofthe Christian church, which can be exploited fully by it alone.
It is difficult to resist continuingthe quotation from Van Ruler because his remarks are so cogent, but it is thatkey phrase of his-"surplus in the Old Testament"-which catches one'sattention. It is that surpluswhich has so often been spiritualized to find its fulfillment in the church. But when interpreted literally itdemands an earthly reign of Christ such as this earth has never seen. Thus, it is the nature of the earthlyreign of Christ as predicted in the Old Testament and not simply the length ofthat reign in the millennial prophecy of Revelation 20 that provides the basisfor dispensational premillennialism.
Continuing to apply this basicprinciple of literal interpretation, the dispensationalist not only findssignificant eschatological distinctions within God's kingdom program, but he isconfronted with a unifying philosophy of history which presents a majestic andclimactic victory within history on this earth. In his system, history is not simply an endless series ofcycles of testing, apostasy and judgment moving nowhere. Rather, history has meaning andpurpose, and this is seen in its progressive movement toward its grandestdemonstration of its doxological purpose. Thus, with intensity and expectationGod's children pray the Disciples' Prayer, "Our Father in heaven, hallowedbe your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is inheaven" (Matt. 6:9, 10,). TheKing, the Second Adam, is coming and he is going to reign until he has reversedthe curse on this earth and subjected every shred of rebellion precipitated bySatan and his opposing kingdom of darkness "so that God may be all inall" (1 Cor. 15:28).
Too often theological systems, ortheir applications, have narrowed God's kingdom purpose down to a redemptivepurpose. They have becomeredemptocentric rather than theocentric; consequently, they have minimized orspiritualized activities in the Word that do not have immediate relation to theredemption of man. In this theyfall short of an adequate philosophy of history for they fail to account forall of created reality.
On this subject one must listen toVan Ruler again in his chapter "The Necessity of the Old Testament for theChristian Church."[33]
. . . the Christian church really has to make something out ofthe Old Testament. It is unquestionably the book of the people of Israel. . .. In the Old Testament thisoriginal and final element, this faithfulness to the earth and time, is moreplainly visible. In my view thismeans that, in this respect, we have to speak most emphatically of the greatervalue of the Old Testament as compared with the New. The Old Testament has a more positive concern with creationand the kingdom, with the first things and the last, with the image and thelaw, with sanctification and humanity, with ethos and culture, with society andmarriage, with history and the state. These are precisely the matters at issuein the Old Testament. For thisreason the Old Testament neither can be nor should be expoundedChristologically, but only eschatologically, in other words, theocratically. Thereis in it a profound confidence in the goodness of the world, the serviceabilityof man, and the possibility of sanctifying the earth [italics mine]. . . . For the consciousness of the Christian church throughout thecenturies there has always been a surplus in the Old Testament that it couldnot assimilate. This surplus is not just the cultus. The church hasspiritualized this or brought it into its own liturgy or used it as a witnessto the message of Golgotha or simply said that it has been superseded byChrist. . . . In my view MartinBuber is completely correct to level against the Christian church throughoutthe centuries the accusation that it has never really been faithful to this OldTestament belief, this grand vision of the God of Israel, this visionary faithin the possibility of the sanctification of the earth. From the necessity of the cross ofChrist, which the church has accepted on the basis of the New Testament, thefalse conclusion has been drawn that no more can be made of the earth. . .. The Christian church has treatedthe Old Testament just as uncertainly and unsuitably as it has treated theJews. . . . Does everything end inthe church? Does everything, notonly Israel, but history and creation exist for the sake of the church? Or is the church only one among manyforms of the kingdom of God, and does its catholicity consist precisely in thefact that it respects, acknowledges, and holds dear all forms of the kingdom,for example, even the people of Israel?[34]
Just a few years after Van Rulerraised those questions, another Dutch theologian, Gerrit G. Berkower, observeda new openness among his colleagues to the Chiuiast's philosophy of history:
Time was when most theologians regarded Chiliasm as afantastic, earth-bound eschatology. A remarkable change has taken place. . . . While the critics of Chiliasm find its description of themillennial times objectionable and unacceptable, the same critics praise theChiliast's fidelity to God's purpose for the earth. It is this motif, they say, which has made Chiliasm acurrent that has never been wholly set aside in the Church. The Chiliast's hope for Christ'skingdom on earth is sometimes called the anti-spiritualistic motif inmillennialism. It is the faiththat God's salvation has meaning not only for heaven, but for earth aswell. For this earth.[35]
Yes, the dispensationalist, by meansof consistent literal interpretation, is enabled is optimistic about what Godis yet going to do with this earth. The greatest and grandest display of God's glory is yet to come when themultiformity of his kingdom program will consummate in a many-splendored unity. The earliest prophecy of God's Word,Genesis 3:15, presents in microscopic fashion, God's twofold solution to atwofold problem occasioned by sin. "And I will put enmity between you and the women and between yourSeed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise Hisheel". The problem was (1)how to reclaim his usurped kingdom, and (2) how to provide redemption formankind. Two prophesied bruisingsor crushings are the key. "Heshall bruise your head" portrays the final destruction of Satan and hiskingdom provided for in Christ's death on the cross. "You shall bruise His heel" pictures Christ'sdeath as also the basis for God's redemptive program. In his work, Biography of a Great Planet, Stanley Ellisen shows the progressive unfolding ofthis twofold purpose in the rest of the Scripture.[36]
The Lord chose two men of faiththrough whom he inaugurated these programs.[37] With Abraham he made a covenantpromising among other things a seed that would bless all nations. This seed Paul identified as Christ whowould bring redemption to men, fulfilling the redemptive program (cf. Gal.3:6-16). To fulfill his kingdompurpose, God chose David out of the same line and made a covenant about akingdom and a royal seed (2 Sam 7:12-16). This royal seed would rule, not only over Israel, but over the wholeworld. Through the seed of David,God would fulfill his kingdom program by destroying the rebels and ruling theworld in righteousness. Thevictory will be won where the battle was started. Ellisen concludes: "Although these two functions ofChrist are inextricably related throughout the Bible, they are distinct intheir purposes. The kingdom purposeis primarily for God, having to do with his reclaiming what was lost from hiskingdom."
What a tragedy it would be, indeed,to lose these truths of the future universal reign of King Jesus on this earthand much, much more through the allegorizing/spiritualizing method that hasblighted so much of Christ. Infact the beautiful hymn by Isaac Watts, the Father of English hymnody,"The Messiah's Coming and Kingdom, "has been spiritualized under thetitle "Joy to the World" and made to refer to the first advent. Thinkof the words as Watts meant them with respect to Christ' coming as King at thesecond advent.
Joy to the world! The Lord is come; let earth receive her king: let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven, and heaven and nature sing.
Joy to the earth! The Savior reigns; let all their songs employ; while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat, repeat the sounding joy
No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; he comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found far as the curse is found, far as, far as the curse is found.
He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness, and wonders of his love, and wonders of hislove, and wonders,wonders of his love
[1] 'E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 5. [2] Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, 3d rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: BakerBook House, 1988),pp. 45-46. [3] Ramm continues: "Far removed from the land ofPalestine, the Jews in captivity could no longer practice their accustomedreligion (Mosaism) which included the land, their capitol city, and theirtemple. There could be no Mosaismwith no temple, no land about which there were many regulations, and noharvest. Robbed of the nationalcharacter of their religion the Jews were led to emphasize that which theywould take with them, their Scriptures. Out of the captivities came Judaism with its synagogues, rabbis,scribes, lawyers, and traditions." p.46 [4] This is a strengthened form of cpJ.tEvcuw whichsignifies "to interpret fully, to explain". [5] These are among the strongest of words in the biblethat speak of the believer's loss of reward (cf. 2:7; 3:12; 22:14). [6] Milton. S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics (reprint, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House,n.d.), p. 609, n. 1. [7] Where the early disciples were first calledChristians (Acts 11:26). [8] Roy B. Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation (Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books, 1991), p. 37. [9] Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, Revised Edition (Boston: W. A. Wilde Company, 1956),p. 48-49. [10] The great historian of hermeneutics, Frederic Farrar,sighs over the demise of the school: "Unhappily for the Church, unhappily for any real apprehension ofScripture, theallegorists, in spite of protest, were completely victorious. The School of Antioch was discreditedby anathemas. . . And we soondescend to allegorical dictionaries of the threefold sense. . . . History ofInterpretation (1886; reprint, GrandRapids: Baker Book House, 1961)pp. 239-40. [11] Ramm, Interpretation, p. 35. [12] Ramm, Interpretation, p. 35. [13] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul'sEpistles to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, and to the Philippians (Columbus, Ohio: Wartburg Press, 1946) p. 98. [14] Quoted by J. I. Packer, 'Fundamentalism 'and theWord of God (Grand Rapids: WmB.Eerdmans, Publishing Co. 1959), p. 103. [15] C. B. Bass, Backgrounds to Dispensationalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), pp. 23-4. [16] John F. Walvoord, The Millennial Kingdom (Findlay, OH: Dunham), p. vi. [17] Charles C Ryrie, The Basis of the PremillennialFaith (New York: Loizeaux, 1953), pp.42-3. [18] Ramm, Interpretation, p. 141. [19] Ramm, Interpretation, p. 49. [20] Robert Mounce, "How to Interpret theBible," Eternity (May 1963),p. 21. [21] Mounce, "How to Interpret," p. 21. [22] Loraine Boettner, "A PostmillennialResponse," The Meaning of the Millennium, p. 95. [23] Floyd E. Hamilton, The Basis of the MillennialFaith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952),p. 38. [24] Martin J Wyngaarden, The Future of the Kingdom inProphecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of the"Spiritualization" in Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), pp. 13-14. [25] Wyngaarden, Future of the Kingdom, p. 28. [26] Wyngaarden, Future of the Kingdom, p. 14. [27] Albertus Pieters, "Darbyism vs. The HistoricChristian Faith," Calvin Forum2 (May1936), pp. 225-8. [28] Hamilton, Basis, pp. 53-4. [29] Ryrie, Basis, pp. 48-9. For furtherdiscussion of the distinction between Israel and the church, see Earl D.Radmacher, The Nature of the Church3d printing (Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., 1996), pp. 176-86;Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today (Chicago: Moody, 1965), p. 132-44; Robert L. Saucy, The Church inGod's Program (Chicago: Moody, 1972),pp. 69-97. [30] A. A. Van Ruler, The Christian Church and the OldTestament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971) p. 45. [31] Van Ruler, Christian Church, p. 55. [32] Van Ruler, Christian Church, p. 57. [33] Van Ruler, Christian Church, pp. 75-98. [35] G. C. Berkower, "Review of Current ReligiousThought," Christianity Today6 (October 27, 1961), p. 40. [36] Stanley A. Ellisen, Biography of a Great Planet (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1975), pp. 22-6. [37] Note Matt. 1:1, "The son of David, the son ofAbraham." |
