Friday, June 15, 2012

Interpreting Scripture (2)


By David Hobbs

The Holy Spirit was not done with “Interpreting the Scriptures” and has continued opening up the subject to me, which has given me some additional, precious understanding. If you haven't already, please read the last post first so this will make sense.


First let me clarify that I am not dissing the laws of hermeneutics. They are real, they are valuable, and in many situations they can help one arrive at a more accurate understanding of Scripture. But they are science based, formulated by the minds of men as a result of countless hours poring over the Bible. They will stand one in good stead when studying things like the Ten Commandments, history passages, the moral law, Psalms and Proverbs, etc. But where they fail is in the prophetic passages. God is a Spirit; prophetic passages are straight from His heart and are also spirit. As such, they can never be analyzed and figured out by the mind of man, like dreams can’t. Just look at how Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams and how Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream—there’s no way they could have humanly figured their interpretations out, it took direct revelation from God, which is why the magicians and wise men failed completely.

The spiritual realm is superior in every way to the natural realm; the Bible makes that plain:

I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (1 Cor. 15:50)

This is the important lesson: the only way spiritual truths can be gotten is by direct revelation from God. Just as man can’t find his way to God, man’s wisdom can never unlock and reveal the mind of God to man. That’s why human wisdom, as advanced in the laws of hermeneutics (or any other forum), can never reveal the truths of prophecy, or even what is prophecy and what isn’t.

We can see that in Matt. 16 where Jesus asks His disciples, “Who do people say the son of man is?” (vs.13). And they answered Him with the human wisdom of the day that was floating around on the dusty streets of Galilee, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (vs.14). Notice that not one of them had the right answer, because they were all based on human reasoning and opinions.

So Jesus went on, “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” (vs.15). Simon Peter blurted out, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (vs.16). Bingo, Simon got it! Notice Jesus’ response, “Blessed are you, Simon … for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven” (vs.17).

Prophetic truth can only be revealed by God, it can never be figured out by man. And Jesus wanted to see if the path of revelation had been opened up from God to His disciples—were they able yet to hear from God? Only then does Jesus talk about building His church, a church that would defeat the devil, possess the keys of the kingdom, bind and loose, etc. And while the rock on which He would build the church was certainly the revelation itself--that He was the Messiah--it was also important that His disciples had been able to get it from God directly, even before they had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. (Notice that while the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is important, it is not a prerequisite to hearing from God.) If they couldn't hear from God, what would they do once Jesus returned to heaven?

That is what my good seminary professor for all his learning failed to understand: prophetic truths can only be learned by direct revelation from God, there is no human way to figure them out.

Suddenly a verse that I never understood in all my 38 years of Christianity, fell into place. It’s Revelation 19:10—“‘For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’” I've puzzled over that one for years. Now I see: the testimony of or about Jesus is always prophetic, therefore always spirit, so it's outside the realm of the mind of man. As we saw in my last post, many of the messianic prophecies as interpreted by the New Testament writers, flagrantly violate the laws of hermeneutics, yet are enshrined as infallible Scripture for eternity. It’s because they are spirit, from the mind of God, and only God can reveal their meaning. That’s true in everything that pertains to Jesus. (“‘The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’”) That’s why the scholars missed Him when He came the first time, and the whole world will miss Him when He comes the next time, until it’s too late. Only those who can hear the voice of God will receive the necessary revelation and instruction to avoid disaster. Consider the story of Lot. Lot received the instructions of God through the angels, fled Sodom and was saved. His sons-in-law couldn't discern the warning as being from God even though their spiritual covering, Lot, tried to warn them. They perished.

We need to be able to hear the voice of God.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Interpreting Scripture

By David Hobbs

I was one of a handful of Spirit-filled students attending a “reformed” (non Spirit-filled) seminary back east. The question arose between one of our group and a young, zealous professor about the right way to interpret Scripture. When you don’t have the Holy Spirit to rely on, what’s your next choice? It turned out to be the wisdom of man. They had all these laws of hermeneutics for the proper interpretation of Scripture: things like studying the passage in the original language, placing it in proper context, the law of first mention, looking at parallel passages, considering the culture of the day and what it would mean to them, analyzing if it was a type of speech like poetry, discursive, hyperbole, etc., and many others.

Well naturally, this professor, so full of all this knowledge and also of himself as the super-learned tend to be (like it says in 1 Cor. 8:1—“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”), this professor despised our way of interpreting Scripture, which was to pray about it and ask God for its meaning. He challenged us: “You Charismaniacs go to one corner of the room and pray all you want over a passage and I’ll go to my corner and apply the laws of hermeneutics, and I’ll beat you every time. Plus I’ll have the right interpretation; who knows what cockamamie stuff you’ll come up with!”

Well we were never able to put him to the test, because in a situation like that, who would be the judge to declare the winner? It was God’s word so only He could be the true judge of what He meant. But how could He communicate that to us except through prayer, which the good professor disdained?

But one thing the professor could never adequately explain is this: if he was right, then how did the writers of the New Testament come up with their interpretations of passages in the Old Testament? Like this passage from Matthew’s Gospel about Jesus’ escape to Egypt (Mt.2:14-15):

So he [Joseph] got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

The Old Testament passage Matthew is referring to is in Hosea 11:1--“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”

The very first law of hermeneutics, considering a passage in its context, disqualifies this from being a messianic prophecy. It’s obviously about the nation of Israel, which God called His first-born son, and their escape from Egypt as recorded in the book of Exodus. It has nothing to do with the Messiah, right? So here is Matthew, egregiously mis-interpreting Scripture. The good professor would have flunked him in his class! And yet Matthew’s passage has become New Testament Scripture, which the good professor has sworn to believe and proclaim as infallible. The irony is too delicious!

The next time you read through the New Testament, notice how its writers interpret Old Testament passages, especially as regarding the Messiah. Then ask yourself, “How in the world did they come up with that interpretation?” Like in John 19:36 where he says God didn’t let the soldiers break Jesus’ legs like the two thieves in order to fulfill the Scripture from Psalm 34:20 about not one of His bones being broken. But that passage is about “a righteous man,” not the Messiah. Surely not every time the Old Testament refers to a righteous man it’s a prophecy about Jesus? And surely there have been righteous men down through history who suffered a broken bone or two! So how do we know? Where is the law of hermeneutics that will tell us? There is none! Then how did the New Testament writers infallibly know?

By the Spirit!