Gospel and Kingdom Chapter 10, Principles of Interpretation

Hermeneutics as Interpreting the Old Testament in Light of the Gospel

In chapter 4, hermeneutics, or interpretation, was described as the process of determining how the ancient biblical text has general relevance for here and now. We may now put this a little more exactly.

Hermeneutics aims at showing the significance of the text in the light of the gospel. To interpret an Old Testament text, we establish its relationship to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. In order to do this, we draw upon our knowledge of the structure of revelation that biblical theology has opened out for us.

The study of the Kingdom of God concept has shown that each stratum, or level, of kingdom revelation has the same essential ingredients relating to the saving act of God and the goal of which they lead.

Each stratum, or level, or era, period of revelation, prefigures the realities of the gospel. Each step is not only a movement in the chronological sequence of revelation, but is a movement in the process of making clear the nature of God's kingdom until the full light of the gospel is revealed.

These relationships are shown in figure number 8, Revelation of the Kingdom of God, which represents both the unity of the whole Bible and the distinctions between the several strata, or levels, or revelations.

In the diagram, the boundaries between the kingdom epochs are indicated by covenant expressions relating to the kingdom. The kingdom is promised to Abraham and foreshadowed, or typologically fulfilled, with David.

The prophets renew the promise of the kingdom, which is declared to be at hand with the coming of Christ. At the second coming of Christ, the kingdom will be fully revealed and consummated. No diagram can tell the whole story, but this representation at least provides a basis for interpretation of any Old Testament text.

Progressive Revelation and the Preordained Gospel

Our whole study of progressive revelation goes to show that the gospel event is the reality which determines all that goes before it and after it. We may look at it another way. From man's point of view, we see the scriptures unfold a step-by-step process until the gospel is reached its goal in Christ.

But from God's point of view, we know that the coming of Christ to live and to die for sinners was the predetermined factor even before God made the world. We must not think of God as trying first one plan and then another until he came up with the perfect way of salvation.

The gospel was preordained so that at the exact and perfect time, God sent forth his son into the world. In the meantime, until that perfect fullness of time should be reached, God graciously provided a progressive revelation of the Christ event.

These prefigurements of the gospel had two purposes. First, this progressive revelation led man gently to the full light of truth. Secondly, it provided the means whereby the Old Testament believer embraced the gospel before it was fully revealed.

The Old Testament believer who believed the promises of God concerning the shadow was thus enabled to grasp the reality. It was by Christ that the saints of Israel were saved, for such is the unity of the successive stages of revelation that, by embracing the shadow, the believer embraced the reality.

Only in this way can we account for the unity of expressions of the New Testament which speak of Old Testament believers as hearing the gospel, seeing Christ, or hoping for a heavenly kingdom. How then may we put this structure of revelation to work for us?

Reading Old Testament Texts in Their Kingdom Context

Broadly speaking, we do this by showing with what aspect of the gospel revelation the Old Testament text has its essential unity. Already we have seen how we may express each stratum of revelation in terms of the dimensions of the kingdom of God.

Every Old Testament text relates in some way to the basic structure of the kingdom revelation and is therefore capable of being related to the New Testament at the corresponding.

Point.

Thus a saving event in the Old Testament relates to the one great saving event of the gospel. A priestly mediator of the saving event in the Old relates to the one great priestly mediator of salvation in the gospel.

And so on. We may summarize the process in the following way. 1. Identify the way the text functions in the wider context of the kingdom stratum in which it occurs.

2.

Proceed to the same point in each succeeding stratum until the final reality in the gospel is reached.

3.

Show how the gospel reality interprets the meaning of the text at the same time as showing how the gospel reality is illuminated by the text. Before offering some examples, a few words of warning are indicated.

Warnings About Complexity and the Limits of Isolated Proof-Texts

It should be remembered that the structural analysis given in the previous chapters is of the most basic kind. We may not overlook the Old Testament's complexity which calls for care and precision. One aspect of this complexity is the repetition of certain aspects of the structure within one given stratum.

Thus, while the Exodus is the definitive saving event, every deliverance affected by judge, king, or by any other means is a saving event. Another aspect which our diagram does not represent is the significance of the history of Israel after the zenith of the United Monarchy.

Nor have we said anything yet about those of Israel's faith expressions in the Bible which do not relate easily to the history of Israel or to prophecy like the wisdom literature of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.

A second word of warning relates to our use of the word text. It will, I hope, be evident that by text is not meant simply a single verse of scripture. It's not possible to lay down rules about how much of the text constitutes an interpretable unit.

The lesson of biblical theology is that no text stands alone and the whole of scripture is its ultimate context. So we should beware of taking every portion of a size, convenient for daily reading, whatever that might be, and forcing it to yield up some self-contained Christian truth.

In our efforts to make every snippet of scripture relevant and edifying to the Christian, we may, in fact, destroy the very message which is present for us in the wider context. Despite the difficulties mentioned, the gospel and the whole witness of the New Testament should inspire us with confidence that the task can be done.

It requires hard work and application, but our efforts will be rewarded as we achieve a clearer understanding of the riches of the gospel.