TiL- Pros and Cons of the Grammatical Historical method of interpretation

Good evening. This is the truth and love podcast. Thank you for joining us and watching. Hope you will stick around tonight. We are going to have another conversation on post.

Millennialism. Welcome to the truth and love podcast. I'm with Dan tonight and we're so so thankful that you support us.

Thank you. Thank you for watching. We really appreciate it. I hope you had a Wonderful time if you were able to go to your worship service this morning. We hope we hope you had a wonderful time at worship as you join your assembly your fellowship your church to worship the true and living God the Trinity Father Son of Holy Spirit and Full of worship full of song a good message from the word and so we we pray that you were able to experience that this morning and We're gonna have a continued conversation.

I won't I won't Dan to to kind of introduce that a little bit later. To help us understand why we're having this conversation. And and where it's coming from kind of the background of the conversation itself.

But but Dan had a topic that we wanted to touch on before we get started. By the way, the comments are open. Even if you're watching this later or listening later, leave us a comment. Send us an email.

Give us a critique a prayer request, whatever you'd like. Just let us know that you're watching. We would really appreciate it. But if you're watching live right now, we would love to hear from you. All you have to do is say hello.

But if you have a question, we'll try to answer it. So what was the What was the topic you wanted to start out with? I Don't know.

Um, what was it, uh. The movie the princess brought he said. Let me explain. No. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. So so let me sum up I. I'm in the process of writing a master's thesis where I'm looking at the consistency of a solid literal grammatical historical hermeneutic and The doctrine of post-millennialism.

Can you arrive at a post-millennial conclusion? Approaching the Bible from a literal grammatical historical.

Hermeneutic now, do you want to break all that down when we get to the questions. Because that's.

That's kind of a lot of big words there didn't it's a lot of big words. It's academic kind of yeah I've been I've been writing it for a while. So Like those words seem smaller to me after saying them so much all the bugs words, all right.

So basically basically a big basically what that means is. When you look at the Bible when you look at scripture You want to understand what the author said? Written what his intent was not what you think he said but what he actually said what he actually meant you do that by looking at his words the grammar that he used because the grammar kind of Boxes in what a possible meaning can be.

You know nouns mean noun things verbs do verb things. You can't go away from those so you kind of constricted by what the grammar allows and you're kind of Boxed in or you're given guidelines. It's more better thing of like bumper guards.

By the historical context like what was what was that? What were the things going wrong during his time? How did they talk during that time period. Had certain things occurred yet had they not occurred yet?

What did the people know what were they trying to accomplish? Where have they just come from? Where are they going? That obviously the context is different for the people in the book of Judges after they've already come into the land.

They're seeing the blessings and the curses either come upon them or go away from them. It would be a different context altogether than Moses leading the people out of Egypt different place different purpose.

It changes what? What the person says it could it changes depending on? It would change the meaning of it depending on where they are what they're doing where they're going all of that it's the same thing with With Different letters and stuff if you have somebody who's writing a love letter and they say something mushy.

It can mean one thing. But if you have somebody writing to say a political opponent and they say something that would sound mushy in a romantic context it very well may be Sarcastic and meant to be hurtful even mocking.

So what is the context? So I was studying all of that trying to see if You approach the Bible. Looking at the grammar looking at the history looking at what the author originally intended. Can you arrive at a post-millennial?

Understanding of the end times. Which will like the entire episode after I get done with this section is going to be on defining post-millennialism. So I'll define that later. But in my in my studies Came across some instances where it seemed like the intent of the author in an Old Testament passage.

When it was quoted by a New Testament author, it would sometimes seem to be different. So What was the original intent of the author. How much of that do I carry forward into the New Testament interpretation of it.

How do I understand that? How can these things be? What I recognized. Actually, let me tell you this it was pretty neat. I was studying that wrote my section on that and in my paper and then Sunday morning this morning My pastor brought up this exact topic in his sermon like he doesn't bring up.

You know, what is a grammatical grammatical historical hermeneutic, but for whatever reason maybe because I was texting with him about the paper but he he brought it up and It was it was really interesting to hear his take on it.

In fact, I'm probably gonna go back and transcribe part of his sermon inserted into the paper. We had to say it was really good and then tonight in The sermon that my my friend and pastoral intern Ryan was pretty was preaching a sermon out of John 12 he quoted in in that passage from Isaiah 6 and If you just read Isaiah You would not come to the conclusion that John came to so How can we say a grammatical historical interpretation of Scripture if if we're trying to understand what the author originally meant, how do we put those two things together and I think the key here is The inspiration of Scripture.

Since we since we believe that God didn't make errors in the preservation of his scripture that we have the words That he wants us to have. And we believe that those words tell us that the Bible was inspired you know all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.

It's profitable for doctrine for approved for correction for instruction and righteousness since God has preserved us the words. And not only done that he was instrumental in their authorship. What do we do with that when we come to?

Hermeneutics we come to Bible interpretation whose authorial intent whose Original intent do we go with when we understand the scriptures? It's important to understand the historical context it's important to understand The the grammar that's being used, but I believe it's more important to understand That since it's inspired the ultimate author the one who compiled the scriptures is one Person one God through the person of the Holy Spirit and Since that's the case.

When we read things in the Old Testament that seem to have a different New Testament interpretation. We need to put a greater emphasis on The New Testament interpretation now we call this Scripture interpret Scripture the more the more clear Interpreting the less clear.

Isaiah 6 and John 12: The Holy Spirit's Interpretation of Scripture

Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I just wanted to take a timeout. Um, yeah.

Well to maybe clarify one of the words that you use because If somebody listens to this and you can you can tell me if you agree or disagree but You made the comment the New Testament has a different interpretation or understanding than the Old Testament passage and so I'm thinking Someone someone may interpret that as saying we're we're saying there's a there's a contradiction between the the Old Testament interpretation New Testament interpretation and.

And I'm just right right off the top of my head trying to think well, how can I harmonize that? How can I say that more clearly? Where I'm not saying or or it's sounding like it's a contradiction and I think I think I can put it like this The the Old Testament passage when it's When it was given by that author, you know from the Holy Spirit to that author of that letter to the original audience the interpretation was was localized For that audience and and so the the New Testament interpretation is In in the context of I'm gonna use the word different but I don't want to use the word different because I think the word different makes it sound like.

They're contradictory interpretations, but but they're not right.

Right. They are different, but they're not Contradictory, right and I believe you get to that place of it not being contradictory because. The original intent is not necessarily the original human author but the original intent is the the original Will say pneumatic author which is very fancy word for the Holy Spirit wrote it.

It was under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now. All of this is kind of abstract. I think it would probably be helpful to look at an example then we can actually you know they say it's easier to turn or steer a moving ship or I don't know if you hold your arm up.

If you know if you hold your arm up off the table try to write your. Handwriting looks like a two-year-old did it? But if you anchor your hand down on the on the paper, you can write like a regular human being.

I mean some people can some people still have terrible handwriting, but your handwriting. If you have it, you know your elbow up or if your elbows down, so if we can actually get an example. We might be able to make more sense of it pull it out of the abstract and put it on something concrete that way people can understand how it can be different and yet There's one truth being communicated throughout the whole.

The whole of scripture now Isaiah may not have known what that truth was in full. And in fact the Bible says in some places that the Old Testament prophets and the angels wanted to see. The things that we see they were looking out very intently.

To see what it is that's going on. What is being revealed here in this new covenant? What is was the new thing that God is is doing because while they saw glimpses and types and shadows. They didn't see the exact fullness of revelation like we've been given in well.

Paul even speaks of it as a mystery. Sure. That is that it's now been you know revealed or we can see it. We can understand it now, but it was it was a mystery up until then.

Yep, and and God revealed to us exactly what he was talking about so I guess we'll go to Isaiah 6 and we'll put some put some feet on this thing before we We move on. All right so Isaiah 6 is the passage where Isaiah is going before God.

He's he's in a vision and he saw Seraphim, you know six wings and they were going around saying holy. Holy. Holy is the Lord God of hosts. And He's he saw God there and he was he was terrified Woe is me.

I'm a man of unclean lips. I'm from a people of unclean lips. I'm undone. No, what's gonna happen to me? I cannot stand on my own in the sight of God so he took the angel took a coal touched his his tongue and cleansed him and It said in verse Eight go down to eight.

Heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send and who will go for us? It's very very interesting. There was there was an angel there and then there was a God and Isaiah so as he was looking around like I guess it's me.

You're probably also saying Lord. I'm willing. Please send me but it was also interesting that he was Kind of kind of there, you know, there wasn't many options. Says here I am send me and he said go and tell this people Keep on hearing but do not understand keep on seeing but do not perceive.

Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy shut their eyes unless they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and Return and be healed or repent and be healed.

Then he's then I said so Isaiah said to the Lord How long so how long am I going to do this? And he answered him until the cities are laid waste and without Inhabitant the houses are without a man and the land is utterly desolate.

The Lord has removed men far away and forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. But yet a tenth will be in it and will return and be for consuming as a Terrible tree or as an oak whose stump remains when it's cut down.

So the Holy Seed Shall be its stump. Leave that Holy Seed being talking about Christ. But in in the portion that is quoted in the book of John it says Keep on hearing but do not understand keep on seeing but do not perceive.

He's speaking to them or he's telling Isaiah when you go out and you talk to this people this people who has The Assyrian army, you know around them the Assyrian army going to come for them going to cause destruction.

When you go out and preach this message, it's gonna fall on deaf ears. They're not going to listen they're not going to turn from their sin and In the process they're going to be destroyed and they're gonna be destroyed off the land and so really this is a prophecy to Isaiah speaking of The coming of the coming going in the going into exile that's going to take place a little bit later.

But Also, you see down here in the end of verse 13 So the Holy Seed shall be its stump what's going to come from? What's the end result of all of this destruction? It's going to be The the Holy Seed the one that's been promised from way back in the book of Genesis.

When he's going to come and crush the head of the serpent so How would Isaiah have understood that Isaiah would have understood it that Isaiah is going to go out to preach. Isaiah is going to have his people not listen he's going to preach until there's a destruction of the people and the people are going to be Destroyed so badly that only a tenth are going to be left when the tenth is left from that remnant will come the Messiah that's the way that he would have understood it and Yet when we turn over to the book of John chapter 12 and we get into verse 37 and 38 Let's see we see this.

He quotes Isaiah in chapter 53 first and then quotes the passage that we just read Speaking of Jesus has but although he had done so many he had done so many signs before them. They did not believe in him.

That the word Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke Lord who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe because Isaiah said again, and here's Isaiah from chapter 6 where we just read He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts.

Unless they should see with their eyes unless they should understand with their hearts and Turn so that I should heal them. These things Isaiah said when he saw his glory and spoke of him. So John is saying that Isaiah's prophecy Isaiah was written down in the book of Isaiah Ultimately wasn't about Isaiah and the coming destruction at the hand of the Assyrians.

While that might be what Isaiah understood it to Mean originally. Well, that is what he should have gone out with the understanding from that encounter the full Meaning the full weight of that conversation.

The as Paul Harvey said the rest of the story Was that John under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is telling us That wasn't even about Isaiah and the people of his day that was actually about Christ in his coming and that the people would reject his message and They would not they wouldn't turn their hearts and repent.

Then there would be a destruction and Then there would be a remnant and from that remnant would come The seed. I believe the seed of the kingdom being the the thing that would start small and grow into a large tree where all the Come where a small, you know small bit 11 gets into the bread and becomes a big lump it's actually speaking of the Seeming non-response of the people of Israel to the preaching of Jesus which ends in The great glorious coming of Christ's kingdom upon the earth.

So explain to me how that messes me up if I am. I'm proclaiming I'm stuck on the grammatical historical method of interpretation and I go to the text and here's my text and I'm. You're talking about Isaiah and I'm in Isaiah I'm using my grammatical historical interpretation interpretation method.

How am I messed up here? Well Here's there's a danger. The danger is When when you take the understanding of Isaiah And say it since it had to have been speaking about Isaiah. Then you come here and you see John Saying that it was being spoken of of the Lord you can end up conflating the two accounts and and You may end up looking for something that was spoken of in the passage in Isaiah.

That's not in view in this passage in John. So for instance in Isaiah It says Until the cities are laid waste and without Inhabitant the houses are without a man the land is utterly desolate. The Lord has removed men far away.

So you're looking for cities that are going to be? Laid waste without inhabitant. Then you look for the destruction and then a tenth and then the stump and then the Holy See. So What of this coming destruction in the book of John.

Were there lots of cities that were destroyed in Israel? Or was it mainly just? The city of Jerusalem. Oh. Well this couldn't have been what was spoken of in Isaiah. This was the start. Now there has to be a gap or waiting for a full-on destruction of the cities surrounding Israel.

Which may enter into a time of you know tribulation Thousand-year reign or whatever else you end up having to. You try to take details from one situation. Fit them into the later context which they weren't meant to be in and then extrapolating out of that Things into the future because you haven't seen everything come to pass so far.

No, this is not this particular passage is not as problematic as some other ones. Mainly if you look at like the book of Daniel you look at the different layers of Nebuchadnezzar statue. You come to the end and they Folks will look at the difference between the toes of iron and clay and the the late the legs of iron and They'll be looking for specific Things from that passage and they won't see them as They're revealed and laid out now.

I'm getting abstract abstract again, but. And they'll try to insert a gap Into there where it says and it clearly says well clearly says in the days of these Kings, right?

How did we how did we miss that.

It's gonna be about seven or eight pages on just time indicators in paper, so. Yeah so the main thing with with the original intent or a thorough intent is to remember that if God has spoken Through a New Testament writer and Giving you an interpretation of an Old Testament passage Whatever you thought you understood about that Old Testament passage has to give away to what the New Testament author says and here's why not because The Old Testament was wrong.

Not because the Old Testament said anything that wasn't Proper but because God has told you Through the New Testament writer the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of that New Testament writer is giving you a divinely inspired Commentary on what is taking place in the Old Covenant in the Old Testament.

So when John is here saying that this passage is actually about Christ Whatever else we could have gleaned from the book of Isaiah by looking at Isaiah alone. We have to let anything that anything that we would you know Shove into that mold.

Fall away with the understanding that what God is saying is that this passage is ultimately speaking about Christ. Yeah, and so when we look at it. We need to remember that God has revealed that to us as well.

Because the temptation would be to to hold ourselves back in that Old Testament context. And not remember what God has said in the future because it's less important that Isaiah was going to get ignored.

And more important that Christ was seemingly going to have a little effect on the people in his area. But from that was going to come the Holy Seed. Yeah was going to come the great growing of his kingdom.

That's that's what Isaiah was really saying. Even though as a didn't know as they was just writing down the vision that he saw the conversation that he had. But what God was revealing in type and shadow.

Isaiah's thrilled to find out about now. Oh, that's what I was saying. That's so cool. I'm really excited. The angels are looking forward to it. There was looking forward to it. Isaiah is thrilled to watch everything that he wrote about unfold before his eyes.

He watches from heaven. But do you think that there was there was at least some kind of I know you said that Isaiah didn't he didn't know About the the future interpretation and the the full full meaning of the text that he was writing but do you think that there was there was some indication that There was something coming because.

Of course, they didn't know and they didn't know until it was revealed. You know once the kingdom had come Jesus himself had come the revealing had happened and had started and and Jesus began to reveal.

You know, this is what it was saying. It was talking about me. But they did have some kind of Thought that there was something coming. I mean they were they were looking for a Messiah yep, and and they had the wrong idea of what that Messiah would look like, but they did have a.

They thought that he was coming right back back in Deuteronomy. It actually says explicitly. That from the people of Israel is going to arise a prophet. That's like a brother to them. One of their own people and that he was going to be the Messiah.

Yeah, so they knew that there was a prophet coming who was going to be like them. They're going to listen to that prophet whatever he said. At least they were supposed to right but right and you have Isaiah 53.

Which is here in John. Yeah, the suffering servant. So I mean there's there's forward looking forward to that In the mixed of his Writing about That that local time. Sure. And what was gonna happen, right?

And I believe in the New Testament where it says that they were looking ahead. They understood that there was something else going on. I just didn't know what it was. They knew that this is what God was wanting me to write down.

This is what God would have would have revealed to me and I don't know the entire story. But God is telling a story his way and I'm glad to put down my part.

Yeah, yeah, and and that helps make sense of the New Testament passages where you know Jesus is walking on the road to a maze and he's explaining to them. It was all pointing to me and then a Verse that I was looking at tonight 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 15 a Paul stone Timothy and that from childhood you have known you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus, but That ability to know or That wisdom that's obtained here because of what's in the sacred scriptures Is only happening because of the the new age is here.

The new kingdom is here.

That point Timothy was being led to understand the scriptures by the Holy Spirit, right? Yeah. Yeah, so that makes it. Yeah. Real quick for our Pentecostal friends if you want. If you want to understand Joel to.

You have to understand acts to. If you're going to understand what Joel was talking about, you have to understand how the Holy Spirit revealed to us in the New Testament. What that passage meant? What was?

The what was being said there? Is it you know? Tongues of prophecy for everyone all the time. Or. Was there a specific application of that prophecy that showed a specific truth? Which I believe acts boils it or restricts what we can say from Joel.

Ever believe it restricts that that's another Instance where we need to remember or need to understand what the Holy Spirit is revealed to us. About a passage, you know when we go back and seek to interpret it We we have to take into account what God has told us about that particular passage.

Otherwise, we're we're we're at best coming up coming up with something that's incomplete. Yeah, I.

I think and I think you feel the same way that the grammatical historical method is still the.

The best Method to use it. It's solid, but it does have that deficiency if if we neglect. If we neglect to allow the scriptures to interpret themselves because it ignores the. It ignores the overall authorship of the Bible by.

God himself. Yeah, I think well, I think that's key that we you you've got to keep in mind that Holy Spirit is the ultimate author and Let me see if I can smooth it out just a little bit and in what I'm thinking because when we were talking about it off-air.

When you begin to explain this This line of thinking and and what you were what's going on with the grammatical historical method. It was taking me immediately back to the debate. I watched Yesterday with dr. James White and some other doctor that I never heard of his last name starts with a K Can he remember his last name van van Keet or killed or something?

Anyway, and it so it was the James White was was on the side of I don't know how to explain the the other guy was was basically the the textus receptus the King James only side and And that that's the textus receptus is the original Authorship and so we we shouldn't trust these, you know modern translations, whatever and and James White of course is on the other side and so Before you got to the point in your explanation of looking at this Grammatical historical method you begin to talk about the authorship of the Holy Spirit and This was before you began to explain what you're talking about and I was like okay, he's taking me back to this guy was looking listening to on the debate because Their argument when they're talking about the King James only that the TR is the original author.

They're like You you can't use all these different manuscripts and compare and use, you know Critical the critical method to try to figure out, you know, which is the the the best or What the authors were trying to say what Using all the different manuscripts try to figure out which which words the authors originally used he's like that's.

That's inappropriate that's not right he was like we need to we need to trust and believe in the Bible the way we trust and believe in God in every other area of life and You know that that pulls somebody in because it's it's very Spiritualized language, you know, don't you trust in God for you for your family for your life for your soul?

You know for everything else in your life. Don't you don't you trust God in that area? Why don't you just trust God that this is his word and he he spiritualized it, you know so much and. And so James White is like I think what I will the way I was hearing and understanding James White's argument or my take from it was.

You know, that's not how the Holy Spirit, you know, the King James is is a good version you can use it but that's not how God through the Holy Spirit his method of Preserving his word throughout history.

Sure His method of preserving his word throughout history is in in this way where You you know, you have all these different copies. Because man's gonna make error in their copy. Mm-hmm. And the reason you have so many copies is so that you can you know, look and see which is the most consistent and narrow it down to eventually get to the original autograph itself and The other guy was like no just spiritualizes it.

No, you just got to trust the Holy Spirit well when it comes to this and using the grammatical historical method, I I Was like no, we don't want to spiritualize it, you know, just just trust the Holy Spirit.

Let him tell you the interpretation and that's not where you went with it. But I think I think a way that it can be smoothed out where we can trust trust that method. To give it more of a give it a foundation because I think we were we're trying to trying to chip away or it sounded Like we're chipping away at the foundation of this method.

One way to make it more solid I think for me would be to say that this is the this is the way the Holy Spirit has has chosen to for us to interpret his word because Yes, he is the original author. And he chose to use men to write it on page or write it on Manuscript right on scroll, whatever the case may be that that was his method of Passing it down giving it to humanity.

All right, but but ultimately you have the human author and you have the Holy Spirit author and the Holy Spirit is above the human author the original and You know, he he comes from him and then through the the human author.

And My reasoning is the reason that he chose that method would be and I think this is what smooths it out is that If if we take away The human aspect of it, you know. Then we begin to spiritualize it.

We become we become a cult or we become you know, we cause the scripture to say whatever we wanted to say because that's the Holy Spirit speaking to me and That's what I'm hearing him say that interpretation of that scripture is because he's the ultimate author and I'm just listening to him.

Wait a second Yes, he is the ultimate author, but he chose this method of interpretation the grammatical historical method so that we don't Get off balance and get off track and say. We're hearing from him when we're really not.

Right, right. Instead of thinking about it like chipping away at the grammatical grammatical historical method we should think of it more like this. God has spoken to us through language. Which means that the grammatical historical method is absolutely valid way to interpret scripture.

However, there are going to be things that we're not going to understand because of the nature of the one who's communicating to us. Right, so God who is higher than us his ways are not always his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

From time to time He had to dumb it down for us and say alright guys. Well, you may have understood me to say this. What I was actually getting at was this. So. Well, I Don't know. Let's say 90 95 98 percent of the time.

I don't so it's high percentage of the things that are not repeated or expounded upon. We should take it plain grammatical historical face value. But when God has saw fit to explain a portion of scripture to us.

Excuse me heartburn. When God saw fit to take the time to explain something to us from scripture a portion of scripture. Then his interpretation has to trump anything that we come up with. Historical method because His ways are higher than our ways.

His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and this is his method of communicating to us. That's right. So when we look at authorial intent or what is the original intent of the author? Yeah, his intent was to communicate to Isaiah.

Hey, this is gonna happen to you his intent for all of mankind through history Was to point to Christ Through the words he spoke to Isaiah.

Yeah, I think that's I think that's the point that I was trying to make as well. To keep both in mind. Yeah because I mean if you look at the Original authors intent of that passage in the Old Testament and and his his focus there is primarily what's going on locally.

We you know, we can still learn from that and what what God is doing throughout that historical timeline. And then when we when we take into consideration the ultimate authors Meaning within it understood that a New Testament interpretation We get the full understanding.

And a helpful way to think about that so that we can we can understand what God was was trying to get at. If we remember that the point of the story While it's told from Isaiah's point of view. The the the pivot point of the story is not Isaiah's point of view, but God's view.

God called Isaiah up into his throne room. God had the angel touch his mouth with the cold. God was the one communicating to Isaiah that people weren't going to listen to his message. But that there was going to be something positive that emerged from all the destruction that was going to take place.

So what was God? Communicating God was communicating his message of redemption. Which is always that always had been planned to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So when God was speaking God was speaking to Isaiah in a way that would further his redemptive plan.

By giving Isaiah direct communication on what he was supposed to do and revealing To To people later on that this was also going to happen to the Christ. This is also going to happen to Jesus so that that word may be completely fulfilled in Christ so It's really easy for us because most of the Bible is written from a human perspective looking at Things that are going on now part of the prophets are not and they're God telling us exactly what he's looking at but like when you see the historical accounts of like David or Samson these are written down from humans watching history unfold.