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Was There an Apostolic Hermeneutic and Can We Imitate it?

Posted on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 at 08:41AM by Registered CommenterR. Scott Clark in | Comments Off

463589-1052551-thumbnail.jpgYes and yes. No, it's not in the Scofield Reference or Ryrie Study Bibles.

It seems that some of our dispensational friends have yet to read the memo. See this example sent to me a by a friend. This writer, whom I do not know, claims that folk such as we talk about the apostolic hermeneutic and claim to be able to replicate it but never say what it is.

One throws up one's hands in amazement and wonder.

It's isn't that complicated. Pay close attention here: The Apostolic hermeneutic is to see Christ at the center of all of Scripture. We're not reading him into Scripture. We're refusing to read him out of it. There, I said it. That's what it is. Perhaps the reason our dispensational friends cannot see it is because they are blinded by their rationalism. They know a priori what the organizing principle of Scripture must be and it isn't God the Son, it's national Israel. "What my net can't catch must not be butterflies." Do they ever stop to think that the trouble could be their net? Does it ever trouble them that any system that leads to the conclusion that one day the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36), who is presently ruling the nations (Acts 2:36; Rev 5:12-13) is going to sit on a throne in Jerusalem to watch sinful human priests slaughter lambs? Does it trouble them that, effectively, they agree with the Pharisees? I'm pretty sure I remember J. Dwight Pentecost saying that the Pharisees had the right hermeneutic but they came to the wrong conclusions. Really? Is that what Jesus said about them? "You guys are really close to getting it right if you would just tweak this one little detail?" I think not.

Just so no one thinks that I'm pulling hermeneutical rabbits out of exegetical hats:

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (ESV)
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our mAmen to God for his glory (2 Cor 1:20)
For Abraham saw my day and rejoiced (John 8:56)

Yes, Reformed folk (and others) have been reading the bible like this for a very long time. The earlies post-apostolic Christians, in contrast to the Jewish critics of the Christian faith, read the Bible to teach a unity of salvation organized around Jesus Christ. The entire medieval church read the Bible this way as did the Reformation and post-Reformation churches.

There were exceptions, however. In the patristic period the Marcionites radically divided Scripture and set the "Old Testament" god against the NT "God." In the medieval church the Albigenses did something similar as did the 16th-century Anabaptists (all of whom denied justification sola gratia, sola fide). Those groups all also had trouble with the humanity of Jesus. What ties those two things together? A Platonizing dualism that sets the material against the physical. This same tendency produces a similar hermeneutic among many American dispensationalists as well. This dualistic tendency explains why dispensationalists refer to the apostolic hermeneutic as "spiritualizing." Yes, rather, but not in the way they think. "Spiritual" in Paul's vocabulary does not mean "immaterial" but "of the Holy Spirit." The same Spirit who inspired Moses also inspired Paul. There is a "Spiritual" interpretation of Holy Scripture that focuses on the God-Man who entered history and around whom all of God's self-revelation is organized.

Where have Reformed folk specifically detailed, illustrated and practiced the apostolic hermeneutic? Here's a reading list:

E. P. Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament
Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching Christ From All of Scripture
Vern S. Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses (Nashville: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991).
Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics
Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology .
Geerhardus Vos, Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation
Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue (PDF).

Here are some short popular attempts to mediate some of this stuff:

This Christian Life
The Israel of God
What Is the Bible All About?" (this link takes you to the MR page but the article is not online).

What method do we use? It's grammatical and historical! It reads the Old in the light of the new. It doesn't set up arbitrary a priori's about what can and can't be. We don't begin with an unstated premise, "All reasonable people know p." We don't think that any uninspired hermeneutic (system of interpretation) is superior to Paul's or James' or Peter's.

One need not be inspired to read the Bible the way the apostles did. I'm not even sure it's proper to say that their hermeneutic was inspired. We confess that Scripture is inspired, but was their way of reading Scripture inspired? I doubt it. As John Frame used to ask in class, were the apostolic grocery lists inspired? No. Can we observe how they read Scripture and imitate it? Yes.

One need not be inspired to see that when Ps 110 says, "Yahweh says to Adon, 'Sit at my right hand'" that David, whose bones are still in the ground, is not Adon! Jesus, who is ascended and ruling at the right hand of the Father, is Adon. There are two reasons one might not see this: 1) unbelief, as in the case of the Jews who rejected Jesus as Savior; 2) rationalism that says, "We know how the story turns out and this can't be the right ending! There has to be a restoration of the national people or it doesn't count. We want do-overs."

No Christian should find either one of those reasons compelling.