Interpreting the Bible

Bruce Waltke

Biblical hermeneutics, the art of interpreting the Bible, aims to develop rules for its interpretation. This article presents two basic rules with important refinements for each, and two final words on encouragement to the reader. These rules are based on the conviction that the triune God for the sake of His elect progressively revealed Himself, according to His own immutable counsel, through the inspired authors, and providentially superintended the collection of their writings into the canon, the Bible, to His own eternal glory.

Rule One: Interpret the Words of the Bible in the Light of Their Historical Context

The different parts of the Bible must be interpreted according to the grammatical-historical method, that is, by studying the meaning of its words in the light of the time and place they were originally written. The books of the Bible are quite old, much older than other books most people have ever read. The world of the Bible is so different from ours that sometimes a translation cannot bridge the gap between these ancient texts and modern readers. But translators of this Bible and the contributors of the notes have not reinterpreted the Bible to suit modern attitudes; neither should the reader.

The application of the first rule is complex because the biblical writings were continually relocated as the canon of Scripture progressively expanded. In this unfolding context earlier texts take on fuller senses. For example, the individual psalms addressed to the people in the first temple period became finally the written Word of God to the covenant people as a whole after they were collected and arranged in the Book of Psalms. From this point, the psalms had to be read and meditated upon (Ps. 1) in the light of their new literary social contexts. For example, Ps. 2, which proclaims Israel's king as the ideal son of God with a mandate to rule the earth through prayer and power, was sung before the Exile in the first temple, probably at the coronation of Israel's kings. When the Book of Psalms was edited after the Exile, however, Israel's throne was vacant, waiting for a promised king, "the Messiah". In that light Ps. 2 became purely prophetic. After the coming of Christ the Psalms became part of the Bible that included the New Testament; in that light "the Messiah" of Ps. 2 takes on its fullest and clearest sense: He is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Understanding the Bible fully means keeping an eye on the developing stages of revelation.

Rule Two: Interpret the Parts of the Bible in the Light of the Whole

The second important rule of interpretation is often called "the analogy of faith". This rule asserts that Scripture interprets Scripture. The Bible itself says that all its parts are inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16), who is not a God of disorder (1 Cor. 14:33). The rule is corroborated by the existence of the Bible as a single volume. The collection of sixty-six books, written over a span of fifteen hundred years, into one book, reflects the church's conviction that the transcendent Author superintended the collection of the many writings into a harmonious whole. Interpretation that pits Scripture against Scripture dishonors the Alpha and Omega, who sees and rules from the beginning to the end of all things.

More specifically, the Old Testa-ment must be interpreted in the light of the New Testament. This is required for both literary and theological reasons. In a lin-guistic discourse the flow of thought keeps screening out unintended meanings. For example, the word "before" in the state-ment, "she sang before the Queen," is ambiguous until the speaker adds "before the Queen rose to speak", or "before the Queen on her throne". In a similar way, as God's story of revealing and estab-lishing His kingdom unfolds, ambiguous texts become more clear. For example, the ambiguous "offspring" (one or many?) in God's promise to Abraham (Gen. 22:18) becomes focused on Christ (Gal. 3:16). The unidentified maiden and Immanuel of Is. 7:14 are seen to be the Virgin Mary and her Son (Matt. 1:23), and the anonymous Servant in Isaiah (42:1-4; 49:1-6; 52:13 - 53:12; 61:1,2) is revealed as Jesus, the suffering and yet triumphant Savior (Matt. 12:18-21; Luke 24:44-49; 1 Pet. 1:11).

This rule is required theologically. Christ, who through the Holy Spirit administers His Word to the apostles, is not only the final but also the best revelation of God. God spoke at various times in various ways in time past (Heb. 1:1), including his revelation to Moses and to the prophets. In spite of their varying psychologies by which God revealed Himself to them, all biblical authors write with infallible authority. But they are not of equal weight in interpretation, as the conflict of Aaron and Miriam against Moses makes evident. Moses' brother and sister, themselves both prophets, challenged the priority of Moses' words over their (Num. 12:1,2). In reply, God censured them for their pride, arguing that Moses' words were superior because God gave Moses a more intimate and clearer revelation than He gave to them (vv. 6-8). The story establishes the important principle that the forms of revelation require a hierarchy of interpretive priorities. Christ is as much greater than Moses as a Son over a house is greater than a slave within it (Heb. 3:5,6). If Aaron and Miriam should have feared to make themselves equal with Moses, how much more should readers fear to make the Old Testament equal to the New Testament that completes it. In fact, as the conversation between Philip and the Ethiopian official shows (Acts 8:30,31), the Old Testament cannot be fully understood without the New Testament. If there is any tension between inter-pretations of the Old Testament and the New Testament. This does not mean that the New Testament corrects the Old Testament, but that it provides greater clarity in understanding the Old Testament.

Interpreting the Different Kinds of Literature in the Bible

With these two fundamental rules in hand we can now proceed to refine them. The grammatical, historical method recognizes that different kinds of liter-ature, or "genres", such as history, law, and prophecy, in the Old Testament, and parables, and letters in the New, will require different rules of interpretation. For example, in contrast to legal literature, prophetic literature, as Num. 12:6,7 makes plain, is frequently symbolic and full of figures of speech, such as meta-phor, personification, and metonymy. Moreover, the prophet's symbolic visions and dreams have taken their hue and coloring from their historical situations. For example, at the threshold of prophecy God warns the serpent: "He [the woman's offspring] shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel." This is not a myth about the antipathy between humans and snakes, but a statement about the conflict between Christ and Satan (Rom. 16:20); the prophecy took its coloring from the situation in the garden.

This kind of symbolic language becomes even more intensified and extensive in apocalyptic literature such as Daniel in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New. The Ishtar Gate of Nebuchadnezzar, now in a museum in Germany, will readily explain why Daniel had fanciful dreams of animals. On that gate through which Daniel passed many times, the patron deity of Babylon's chief administrator, saw a lion with the wings of an eagle leading a train of other bizarre animals representing Babylon and suc-cessive kingdoms (Dan. 7).

The Old Testament prophets, using the images of their world to show the greatness of Christ's rule from His heavenly throne, supercharged the old figures. To portray the heavenly cha-racter of Christ's rule, for example, Mount Zion is described as the highest mountain, presumably, were it known, higher than Mt. Everest (Mic. 4:1). To show the holiness of His kingdom, even the equip-ment of horses bears the inscription formerly reserved for the diadem of the high priest, HOLINESS TO THE LORD (Zech. 14:20). Jesus used enigmatic parables in order to conceal His meaning from unbelievers and to reveal it to His disciples (Matt. 13). Emphatically, the first rule of hermeneutics does not mean that words are always to be taken in their plain, "natural" sense; the interpreter has to take careful note of figures of speech and literary genres.

Prophetic and apocalyptic literature in the Old Testament and Christ's parables in the New must not be read in the same way as Paul's letters. Just as encyclopedia articles cannot be read as poems, so also the Psalms ought not to be read Chronicles. Relatively clear texts like the epistles ought not to be inter-preted in the light of the less clear prophetic and apocalyptic literature; in-stead, the unclear should be read in light of the clear. More subtly, even such letters of Paul as those to the Corinthians, which assume the reader knows the situation the apostle is addressing, are less clear than an epistle like Romans, that logically sets forth the Christian faith within a particular historical context.

Even what appears to be straight-forward history, such as Kings and Chronicles in the Old Testament, and the Gospels in the New, is not as straight-forward as may appear upon first reading. The inspired historians of both Testa-ments have carefully chosen and arran-ged their material to teach spiritual lessons according to the needs of their audiences. Sometimes incidents are arranged in topical or dramatic order rather than in a purely chronological sequence. For example, the Table of Nations in Gen. 10 chronologically came after Gen. 11, the story about the Tower of Babel, but Moses wanted his audience to view the nations under God's blessing (Gen. 9:1-17) and not under His judgment (Gen. 11:9). Sometimes the line between historical and symbolic literature is attenuated as in the stories of the early chapters of Genesis and, as some think, in Jonah. Specifically, no one thinks that Eve only was sentenced to return to the ground upon death (Gen. 3:16-19). Every reader intuitively perceives that Adam and Eve represent every man and woman. Nevertheless, the genealogies of the Old Testament and the teachings of New Testament validate their historical character as well.

The second rule, the "analogy of faith," needs to be refined particularly with reference to the political history of the Old Testament and its relation to the New. God is not pursuing two programs, one with earthly Israel and a second with the heavenly Church, as popularized in dispensational teaching. Rather, the earthly presentation of the kingdom in the Old Testament is typical of its heavenly and spiritual manifestation in the New Testament. For example, the political and religious deliverance of Israel form Egypt through the Passover lamb, Israel's baptism in the Red Sea and the pilgrimage through the wilderness, sustained by manna from heaven and water from a rock, and then entrance into the land of Canaan, depict in concrete terms the spiritual experience of the Church. The Old Testament history graphically portrays the exodus of the New Israel from the Satanic world with its bondage of sin and death through the Passover Lamb, Christ (1 Cor. 5:17), baptism into His death and resurrection, that is a death to the world and rising to the newness of His resurrection life (Rom. 6:3,4; Gal. 6:14), pilgrimage to the hea-venly city, nourished by the sacraments of bread and wine (1 Cor. 10:1-17), and final rest in the Promised Land (Heb. 4:6-11; 11:39,40). Israel's ritual, with its conse-crated site at Mount Zion, its sacred sabbaths and seasons, its holy priests and kings, and its hallowed institutions such as animal sacrifice, symbolized the heavenly realities (Ex. 25:9) now fulfilled since Christ entered the heavenly san-ctuary (Heb. 9:10). The earthly and temporal rituals were typical and became forever obsolete when Christ brought His glorified church to the eternal, heavenly realms. Today the church "is hidden with Christ" in the heavenly domais (Col. 3:1-4) and in the future He without a veil will be seen (1 John 3:2,3). The Christian must read Israel's history and ceremonies not only with a view to understanding what Israel's history and ritual meant at the time, but also with an eye to their antitypical significance according to the New Testament.

Moreover, the prophetic promises, molded according to the political expres-sions of the kingdom as known before Christ, must not be interpreted as having a future, carnal fulfillment based on the typical model that has forever been done away (Heb. 8:13), as some dispensational teaching has supposed. Rather, the pro-mises must be read in the light of the antitypical, heavenly, and spiritual realities that endure forever (2 Cor. 4:18).

Two final words. First, although the Bible is a very old book, it is addressed to you. When introducing citations from the Old Testament, the New Testament writers frequently use the present tense, "God says," rather than "God said," and they reinforced the present relevance of His ancient Word by adding, "to us" and "to you," rather "to them" (1 Cor. 9:9,10). Both Moses and Paul say, "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (Deut. 30:14; Rom. 10:8). Second, because the Bible is God's Word, do not read the Bible in the same way as other books. Biblical writers consistently use such expressions as "God says" (Is. 1:18-20; Matt. 19:4; Acts 4:25). Often God says directly, "I say" (Mic. 1:6-8). Accept God's word in faith and mediate upon it with memorization, imagination, and reflection. Before reading the sacred pages, pray, "O God, speak to me" (Prov. 2:1-6). You too will say with others, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us?" (Luke 24:32).