As an evangelical Christian, I have a high view of the authority of Scripture. I do believe the Bible is God’s Word to us. It is revelation from God in human words, not merely human ideas about God. That is why it is authoritative.
In the language of 2 Timothy 3:15-17, the Bible is “…the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
Paul is referring primarily to the First Testament writings, the Bible of his day, but the church has long recognized the “God-breathedness” of the New Testament writings as well.
In my time at Seminary and in the years since, the authority and interpretation of Scripture has been a special theme of mine. The formulation I like best came from a world-Christian document called the Lausanne Covenant. The International Congress on World Evangelization was held in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1974. The gathering was called by a committee headed by Rev. Billy Graham and drew more than 2,300 evangelical leaders, from 150 countries.
In the Covenant they produced the delegates wrote this about the Authority of Scripture:
"We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. We also affirm the power of God’s word to accomplish his purpose of salvation. The message of the Bible is addressed to all men and women. For God’s revelation in Christ and in Scripture is unchangeable. Through it the Holy Spirit still speaks today. He illumines the minds of God’s people in every culture to perceive its truth freshly through their own eyes and thus discloses to the whole Church ever more of the many-colored wisdom of God."(1)
This is a high view of Scripture that goes so far as to say the Bible is “the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” This formulation, however, recognizes the crucial task of interpretation. All that is found in the Bible is not necessarily “affirmed” as the positive teaching of Scripture. Only what is affirmed is without error. Let me give three examples.
1. The Importance of Context
There is the old story of the man who used the open and point method of getting Biblical guidance. At random he opened the Bible and put his finger down on a passage in the New Testament. It read, “Then he went away and hanged himself” (Matthew 27:5). Not liking that, he turned a few pages and tried again, only to read: “Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise’” (Luke 10:37). Finally, he tried once more to get guidance, different guidance. This time the verse his finger pointed to read, “What you are about to do, do quickly,” (John 13:27).
The point, of course, is not to take verses of Scripture out of context. When we do, that is when we can support almost anything from Scripture – from the phrase “born again” referring to reincarnation, to support for the inferiority of certain racial groups.
Good interpretation is in part, looking at the context of any particular verse. We first begin with the immediate surrounding verses; then the chapter and book it is in; then whether it is Old or New Testament; at other similar teachings; and finally the largest context – all of the Bible. As many have pointed out, the Bible is its own best interpreter.
Only statements of the Bible taken in context may be something the Bible positively affirms.
2. The Importance of Original Intent
A second question after the immediate context is what could the first audience for this passage understand as the primary meaning of what is said? What was the original intent? This is an important question for prophecy, as well as for poetry and historical and/or passages touching on what we would call areas of science. If we jump immediately to what seems to make sense to us without reference to what would have made sense to them, we can get it very wrong.
In Revelation 9:16-19 we read of “horses and riders”:
"The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number….
"Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.
"The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.
It would be wrong just to jump to the nearest thing today that comes to our mind in the picture of this huge army. Because of the large number of troops coming from the east (the river Euphrates, v. 14) and the devastating power of the destruction, some have said that what this passage describes is the Chinese militia coming to battle in nuclear armed tanks and armored weaponry.
But this ignores what the original audience could possibly have understood the meaning to be. Not that they would always understand the full and final meaning of a prophetic word from God, particularly one to be fulfilled in the last days. But it would have to mean something to them for God to have spoken it at that time and place.
In regards to Revelation 9, it is quite possible that the picture is not of human troops at all, but demonic hordes of supernatural origin, like the demonic locusts of the first part of Chapter 9. Furthermore, what actually kills are not weapons, but are called “plagues” in v. 18 and 20: “the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.” This, along with “tails like snakes,” is highly suggestive of the demonic. While armored troops could possibly be a final fulfillment, it would not be most accurate to say this is what the passage means.
3. The Importance of Literary Style
What the first audience understood may be quite different than our understanding. And we may miss an important fundamental meaning if we don’t recognize that different portions of Scripture have different literary styles which require different kinds of interpretation. Most of us probably do not hear poetry like they did. Many of us are not actually very sensitive to modern poetry either.
For instance, in Genesis 1:27 we find a 3 line verse of Hebrew poetry (virtually all translations set this verse apart visually as poetry).
"So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them."
If we are not sensitive to what Hebrew poetry is we might just think this verse merely states that God created human beings in his own image (which is the main point and about which much can be said); and also God created humanity with two sexes.
But the nature of Hebrew poetry tells us more. In Hebrew poetry the last words of each line don’t rhyme (as often in English poetry), the thoughts of each line “rhyme.” Most often, the second line will echo the first, saying the same thing in different words. Sometimes the second line expands the thought, and once in a while it will make a contrasting statement. Here in Genesis, we have three lines in which the first two are almost identical in meaning and the third makes an important expansion of the thought of the first two. Man (“him”) was created by God in God’s image (which means among other things that we can communicate with God, and we have an awesome power given by God to affect this world).
But man (“him”) is created male and female. Which means that the image of God is not just male, nor just female, but incorporates both male and female. God is not in “His” essence male – nor is “She” female. God includes both. Likewise, male and female humans are incomplete – not fully in the image of God – without each other. We need the presence and influence of the other to be fully alive in God’s image and to manage God’s creation rightly. How much more this is than merely saying God created humanity in two sexes!
Here is another example. In a few lines of poetry, Joshua 10:12-14 describes a day of battle when in response to Joshua’s prayer, God stopped the sun “in the middle of the sky and delayed [it] going down about a full day.”
Are we to think scientifically from a 21st century perspective that God stopped the earth from turning around the Sun for several hours? Not that anything is too hard for God. But does the text require that interpretation?
The Hebrew word for "stood still" was used in Joshua 3:16 to say that the waters of the Jordan "stopped flowing." Commentators remind us that in a poetic passage like this, the word could mean "stop moving" or even "stop shining." What happened? As the NIV Study Bible notes:
"Some believe that God extended the hours of daylight for the Israelites to defeat their enemies. [The very first “daylight savings time”? Supernatural light until 1 or 2 in the morning? - TDM] Others suggest that the sun remained cool (perhaps as the result of an overcast sky) for an entire day, allowing the fighting to continue through the afternoon." (2)
Whatever the Israelites experienced, it was God’s doing. But it did not necessarily involve the earth stopping rotation around the Sun and throwing the whole universe into confusion. That would be an unnecessary interpretation based on our modern scientific knowledge.
What I believe the Bible affirms is that something very spectacular certainly occurred that day that elevated Joshua as a man of God: his prayers were unusually effective. And it reminds us again that Israel was not winning the land by their own strength; God was giving it to them.
Poetry is not prose; it involves symbolic language and images. Storytelling is not lawgiving; the application of each will be different. The application of historical sections will be less direct and obvious than that of Paul’s letters.
And prophecy and apocalyptic often combine several literary styles together, sometimes being straight narrative, then moving into poetic declarations, or describing highly symbolic visions. They can even reiterate law and be contained in the form of a letter.
Proper interpretation of Scripture – whether prophecy or any other kind – involves taking passages in context, taking into account what the original audience could have understood the meaning to be, and recognizing the different literary styles used.
4. Interpreting Prophecy – Literal vs. Symbolic
You sometimes hear people say, “I just believe what the Bible says; I interpret the Bible literally.” Part of what is being stated is a frustration with people spiritualizing Biblical statements that seem to be difficult for some to take at face value, often because of anti-supernatural biases or trouble harmonizing them with modern scientific or philosophical understandings.
I came to my first church because they could not find then in the United Church of Christ, anyone interested in them who would affirm the Apostles’ Creed statement that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. Not only was the virgin birth of Christ spiritualized but I later met more than one pastor who spiritualized the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Like retired Episcopal Bishop, Shelby Spong (3) and others today, the idea that Christ’s physical body lay dead and buried somewhere was not a problem to them. He rose from the dead in the hearts of his followers.
Of course this totally flies in face of the combined New Testament witness about the real, living post-resurrection appearances of Christ Jesus, and Paul’s statement that without a real, bodily resurrection our faith is in vain and we are to be most pitied (1 Corinthians 15:14-19). Not only is there no legitimate interpretive reason to turn these eyewitness statements into a spiritualized symbolic claim, it is contrary to the evidence.
To a lesser degree, those who want to guard against an over-spiritualization of prophetic Scriptures have good motives and some cause. There have been times in the history of interpretation when all kinds of hidden, symbolic meanings have been found in Scripture. The Jewish scholar, Philo (c. 20 BC-50 AD), used an allegorical method, where he sought out the hidden message beneath the surface of any particular text and tried to read back a new doctrine into the work of the past. But in some aspects of Jewish life Philo defended the literal interpretation of his tradition as in the debate on circumcision or the Sabbath. Though he acknowledges the symbolic meaning of these rituals, he insists on their literal interpretation.
Likewise, the Christian Father, Origen (c. 185-251 AD) followed this lead and was largely responsible for establishing the allegorical interpretation of Scripture that was to dominate the Middle Ages. “In every text he believed there were three levels of meaning: the literal sense; the moral sense, which was to edify the soul; and the allegorical or spiritual sense, which was the hidden meaning important to the Christian faith.”(4)
Origen himself tended to neglect the literal or historical meaning of the text in favor of the deeper allegorical and spiritual meaning. This all began to change with the Protestant Reformation and a renewed emphasis on the literal or “plain” meaning of Scripture.
The practical problem is that in prophecy, as in poetry, much of the language is, in fact, symbolic. There are visions and wild creatures; there are recurring numbers loaded with symbolic weight (3; 7; 10; 12; 24; 1,000; 10,000; 144,000; etc.); there are repeated “shorthand” descriptions (when God comes in judgment there are almost always clouds and smoke and earthquakes and mountains falling into the sea). What is the literal truth from these symbols? What are legitimate limits to symbolic interpretation? Can we be too literal and miss the real meaning?
a. Symbolic Truth Is Real Truth
First of all, truth by way of symbols is real truth. The primary truth of a symbol does not depend on a one to one correspondence with the thing symbolized. We all know what is meant when we talk of a beautiful sunrise or sunset. But in scientific truth, the sun does not move at all. Is it therefore untruthful to talk about a beautiful sunset? No.
In Revelation 19:11-16 we read a description of Christ returning as the King of Kings. Included are these images:
Rev 19:11 …there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war.
Rev 19:12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns….
Rev 19:13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.
Rev 19:15 Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.
Rev 19:16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
Does a literal interpretation of these verses require the thought that if we were videographers capturing the second coming of Christ on video, we would see a man on a white horse somehow wearing many crowns on his head, eyes ablaze with fire, wearing a blood-drenched robe emblazoned with “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS”, and having a war sword held in his mouth and not in his hand? Is he riding the horse, or is he angrily stomping around in a winepress called “the fury of God’s wrath”? When Christ comes again will there even be a horse he rides on?
What does it mean and how can we tell?
If we recognize that this is a description of Christ’s return full of symbols, then we need to find the truth of the symbols within the context of this passage and the book of Revelation, taking into account what this would most likely have meant to the writer John and his original audience. Then, when we have that essential truth, we can move toward an application for today.
John and his fellow Christians would have seen the white horse as a warrior’s charger (as opposed to a peaceful, gentle donkey). Christ is returning as warrior and conqueror, Messiah and true King. His blazing eyes show his certain righteous knowledge of the full extent of the rebellion he is putting down, and his righteous anger at the suffering it has caused. He is the true King of kings and Lord of lords and wears the crowns to show it, and if anyone is in doubt, it is further written on his robe and thigh. The bloody robe hearkens to His own blood, shed on the cross, as well as to the blood of the martyrs and perhaps even the blood of his enemies. He is the incarnate Word of God and he speaks the Word of God in righteousness and judgment. The sword is appropriate coming from his mouth for it is a symbol of the Word of God; and as in creation, all he needs to do is speak a word and it shall be done. (As Martin Luther wrote in A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, “….One little word shall fell him [the devil, our enemy]”).
Treading the winepress of the fury of God’s wrath picks up an Old Testament image (Isaiah 63:3; Joel 3:13) which was used back in chapter 14, verse 19. It is a vivid picture of exactly what Christ is doing in coming in judgment upon the rebellious enemies of God, crushing his enemies under his feet.
To me, as to other commentators I have studied, all this is the clear truth of this passage. When Christ comes again it shall be as the conquering King of kings bringing judgment and salvation, and an end to the great rebellion and tribulation time. No one will be able to stand against him; it won’t even be close!
Whether he actually comes riding on a war horse, or whether he is wearing a bloody robe or even a robe at all, and if he has any kind of sword anywhere about him is not important to the truth of this passage. As symbol, the reality when it occurs may be very close to the symbolic representation – i.e., he could indeed be on a horse wearing a bloody robe, etc. On the other hand, the reality that is seen then may be substantially different than pictured here – he could float down in the clouds of glory like he left at the ascension, dressed in a kind of fire and light and splendor, and in which with a single breath he overthrows and destroys the Antichrist and his troops (see Acts 1:9-11; 2 Peter 3:7-10; and 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8 and 2:8). Exactly how he looks and how he vanquishes his enemies is not the point. That he does and does so completely and exactly in God’s timing is!
b. Being over-literal in symbolic literature can take our focus away from the real truth trying to be conveyed through the symbols.
On the other hand, symbols don’t mean anything you want them to mean; they need to be grounded in the Biblical context and the original writer’s world. God really didn’t try to make it hard for us. In fact, most often the pictures the symbols paint are pretty vivid in their meaning and have spoken powerfully to different folk in different cultures down through thousands of years.
With a little work and a little caution, we can discover the truths God has for us in prophecy and in all of Scripture.
5. Trust and Obey
And that, of course, is the most important principle of biblical interpretation. When we have done all we can to understand and interpret scripture correctly, we must receive it as God’s word, God’s truth. We are to apply it and live it out. We do not come to the Word to judge it; we allow it to judge us. As Hebrews 4:12 says,
”For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
God speaks directly through His Spirit to our spirits. God speaks through other people, including his preachers and teachers, counselors and prophets. But God speaks most clearly through the Bible.
We do not worship the bible, we worship the Word of God made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord. But we know Christ and his will most clearly, and compare all other words to us against the written Word of Scripture.
The old hymn got it right:
When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will He abides with us still, And with all who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way To be happy in Jesus, But to trust and obey.
…What He says we will do, where He sends we will go - Never fear, only trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way To be happy in Jesus, But to trust and obey.
Notes:
1) Lausanne Covenant, Section 2. THE AUTHORITY AND POWER OF THE BIBLE. http://www.lausanne.org/
2) NIV Study Bible (Fully Revised), Zondervan, 2002, p. 305, note on 10:13.
3) Shelby Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (HarperSanFrancisco; Reprint edition, 1995). "Here I Stand" ( HarperCollins, 2000) pp. 468 -469 lists his Twelve Theses, including:
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ’s divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
4) The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History, A. Kenneth Curtis, et al., ed., (Fleming H. Revell, 1991) 1998 edition, p.27
