Our study this evening is in the Westminster Confession, Chapter 1, Section 9, which deals with hermeneutics. Hermeneutics means the interpretation of a written text. The term comes from Greek mythology, the god Hermes, who is the messenger of the gods. So hermeneutics is the study of the message or how we should interpret a written text to understand its message properly. And in the Westminster Confession, chapter 1, section 9, we have a doctrinal statement about hermeneutics which is very important for our consideration. Let me read it for you. The infallible rule of interpretation of scripture is the scripture itself, and therefore When there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture, which is not manifold but one, it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly. There are three basic theses to be found in this statement about hermeneutics. It's not a full discussion of hermeneutics. In fact, some of you may be aware that last year I was asked to write a confessional statement on hermeneutics to help combat modern heresies within the church. And that statement had 13 articles and I think ran six or seven pages. And it didn't cover everything, obviously, but it was just the main outline of things. But back in the days of the Westminster Confession, the opposition to orthodox faith, which the Puritans faced, could pretty much be answered by the three theses that we find in this statement. The first thesis is that scripture interprets scripture. The second thesis is that the obscure should be interpreted by the more clear, And the third thesis is that the sense or meaning of scripture is not manifold but one. That scripture is unified in what it teaches us. Let's begin our study by looking at 2 Timothy 2.15. Paul writes to the pastor Timothy give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth." It's a moral obligation for us to stand before God and have his approval because we have not distorted his word or used it as a pretext for our own preconceived ideas, but rather have properly handled it. The King James translation, rightly dividing the word of truth, was wrongly divided by Schofield and his followers. They thought that meant you should recognize the proper dispensations that divide the Bible. Rightly dividing the word of truth. I should have brought the proof to you. I have the booklet that Schofield published. That's the title and it's a discourse on the dispensations. But rightly dividing has to do with handling properly, discerning, cutting straight as you interpret the Bible. So the scripture tells us that it's important that we interpreted it properly and that we handled it in a correct way. If you think about it for a moment, we have already studied the sufficiency of scripture and the clarity of scripture and we've had occasion to reflect on the final authority of scripture. So we believe the Bible to be perspicuous or clear, we believe it to be sufficient for our needs and to be our highest authority. But all three of those points can be readily undermined by claiming that although whatever the Bible says is infallible, the meaning of what the Bible says must be determined by some other source than scripture itself. So it's crucial to guard these doctrines of the faith about scripture by supplementing them with a statement regarding hermeneutics. Because if we don't do that, then some human authority intrudes between God's word and the child of God, so that the word doesn't exercise final authority, but the human interpreter exercises the final authority. The need for the statement that we've read in the Westminster Confession, Chapter 1, Section 9 is obvious if I can give you just a couple examples. The Council of Trent Roman Catholic Council that was designed to counteract the Fascist Reformation. The Council of Trent declared in the 16th century, and I quote, to check unbridled spirits, the Council decrees that no one relying on his own judgment shall in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of doctrine disturbing the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presumed to interpret them contrary to that sense which Holy Mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of their true sense and interpretation, has held, or holds, or even contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers." That's rather plain, isn't it? The Roman Catholic Church says Holy Mother Church interprets the Bible and no one dare disagree with the interpretation of the church. Of course there is a rather humorous and I think obnoxious triviality in this statement. If I read it again perhaps you'll pick it up. What is forbidden is that anyone should distort the scriptures. To check unbridled spirits, the Council decrees that no one, relying on his own judgment, shall on matters of faith and morals pertain to the edification of doctrine, distorting the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presumed to interpret them contrary to the sense which Holy Mother Church brings to the Scripture. Well, in that sense, I agree with the Council that no one has the right to follow his own conceptions and distort what the Bible says. But you notice that the Council doesn't say distort what the Bible says on its own reading, but distort what the Bible says on the reading of the Holy Mother Church. In 1893, Pope Leo XIII declared that the Church is, quote, the perfectly trustworthy guide and teacher. In which case, he went on to say, the proper meaning of Scripture is, and I quote, that sense which has been and is held by our Holy Mother, the Church, whose is the judgment of the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, so that nobody is allowed to explain Holy Scripture contrary to that sense or to the unanimous opinion of the Fathers." So these two quotations will show you, I think, vividly what the object of the Puritan disdain was when they wrote section 9 of chapter 1. It's the Roman Catholic Church pretending that everybody's got to bow the knee to what it says the interpretation of the Bible is. But according to our confession of faith, no human interpreter needs to come between God's word and God's child. No human interpreter has the right to stand as a screen, as it were, between me and the ultimate authority of scripture, telling me, well, this is what scripture means and you must bow to it. Now, when I say this, that no one has the right to intrude between the child of God and the word of God, notice that what I mean is no one has the right to intrude as a judge, as someone who binds the conscience. Because God has, after all, given us servants of the word to help his people. And we have the right to teach God's word, to proclaim it from the pulpit. The church even has the right to write the creeds and confessions of faith to help people understand what the bible says. But no one has the right to say that this is the interpretation of scripture and you do not have the right to disagree with us by going directly to the scripture. So no one has the right to intrude as a judge although everyone has the right to help others and in that sense be a servant of the word rather than a judge of the word in trying to help other believers to understand it. To put it very simply, Protestants hold to the right of private interpretation against the imperial claims of Roman clericalism. The Roman Church wants to have imperial authority and let its clerics tell us what the Bible means, and to deprive us of the right of judging what its clerics say by going directly to the Bible, whereas Protestants hold to the right of private interpretation. So, you'll notice in the Confession of Faith, going back there, that it begins by referring to the infallible rule of interpretation. the infallible rule of interpretation, the Roman Church teaches that the Roman Church itself authoritatively determines what is canonical, we've already seen that in previous studies, the Roman Church determines what traditions are the infallible ones, and the Roman Church teaches what is the correct meaning of scripture and tradition. So I mean, the ultimate authority is obviously that of the Magisterium of Rome. It tells you what is the Bible, it tells you what traditions are infallible, and it tells you what the meaning of the Bible and tradition is. But Protestant theology, by contrast, teaches that the canon is self-authenticating. It's not the result of the work of the Church. Protestant theology teaches that only Scripture is authoritative in the Church, not tradition along with it. And now, as we see in tonight's lesson, Protestant theology teaches that every individual believer is permitted to interpret the meaning of scripture for himself or herself. Remember, we believe the Bible is perspicuous. And because the Bible is perspicuous, it has no need for some human authority to intrude to tell us what it means. It's not the church that clarifies the scripture but God himself who clarifies the scripture and its meaning. Now does this imply that every individual can make scripture say just whatever he or she wishes it to say? Sometimes people hear the right of private interpretation And they take that to mean, well, I can believe whatever I want. You know, I can make the Bible like a wax nose to be pushed this way or pushed that to fit the configuration of whatever I want it to be. No, we're not at all talking about the right of distorting the Bible. We're talking about the right of individual believers to interpret what it says according to proper rules of interpretation. It doesn't mean you can just turn the Bible into any kind of message you want it to be. But the point is those rules of interpretation are followed by individuals and they compare notes with each other rather than the rule of interpretation being the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Just to drop on us as it were from above, this is what it means and you have no right to question it. Can you all see the difference between those two? Both want to avoid the idea that the Bible can be made to say anything you want it to. But the Roman approach is political. You have this body of men who tell you what the Bible says and you dare not question it. Whereas the Protestant approach is, and bear me out here, is rational in the sense that rather than going to a political solution, imposed meaning, one uses one's mind and the proper canons of interpretation in order to understand what the Bible says. The scripture doesn't anywhere authorize any body of men to tell other men what God's word does and does not mean, thereby binding their consciences. In the end, we always stand before God and answer only for His word to us. We don't answer for some church council's word to us about God's word. God is going to hold us accountable to what he said, not to what the Roman Catholic Church said or even the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And for that reason, creeds and elders in the Church can only bind those who voluntarily adopt those creeds and submit to those elders. You don't believe in political tyranny. is going to be subject to the discipline of a church, it's only because they have voluntarily chosen to submit to the discipline of that church. And on the best reading, what they're supposed to do is to choose to submit to a church because they have read the Bible and they see agreement between the teaching of this church and what the Bible says. They don't submit to the authority of the church to tell them what the Bible means. Moreover, even those creeds and the decisions of elders within a church are binding only so far as they agree with scripture. So this section of the confession does not rule out the very thing in which it appears, a confession of faith. The church can write a confession of faith. But no one is bound to that confession unless they voluntarily submit. And they are only bound to it to the degree that it is true to the scriptures. I recently, when I was in England, presented an interpretation of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 on the man of sin. That's a notoriously difficult passage. There's a lot of different opinions on it, and I offered what I thought was the best that our scholarship can come up with on that. And I was challenged in the question period by a free Presbyterian minister who asked how dare I disagree with the Westminster Confession of Faith since it offers its own interpretation of that text at one point. Now we have to understand it's one thing to respect the Westminster Confession. I think anybody who's been in this class knows that I hold it in very high regard when I believe that it is the authority within my denomination and should be enforced and that sort of thing. However, the Confession itself teaches us not to make the Confession our primary standard. The Confession tells us that we're only to follow it to the extent that it itself follows the Scripture. Clearly the people who wrote the confession felt that it followed the scripture at every point or they wouldn't have written what they did. But the fact is the writers of our confession grant the right of private interpretation and so I cannot be bound to the confession to the exclusion of comparing it to the scripture as my final authority. Okay, so the infallible rule of interpretation according to the Puritans is rational, not political. Rational in the sense that every individual is to use canons of truth and interpretation of what a body of men have determined by a vote to interpret the Bible. Now, the infallible rule of interpretation of scripture... What is the best source What is the best judge for explaining what you meant by saying something? Yeah, you yourself, am I right? Let's say, I've had this happen a number of times, especially when people have ill will towards you and they want to find some reason to criticize you. You say something and you find out, oh, it was interpreted in a particular way which Okay, the words may have been open to that, but that isn't what you meant. But then when you go to, sometimes when I've tried to tell people, now that's not what I meant, but those words also could be taken this way. And it's like, oh no, that isn't what those things mean. Those words mean this, and therefore you're wrong. Well, you know, apart from, you know, being part of a gang that wants to mistreat you, I think everybody can see that the best judge of what you meant by what you said is you yourself. That doesn't exclude the possibility that somebody might lie because they're embarrassed later, but the fact is, if words can be taken in different ways, the best thing you can do is to go to the speaker and ask him or her, do you mean it this way or do you mean it that way? That same common sense rule should be applied to the scripture. The person is the best source and judge for explaining what he meant by saying something, So the Holy Spirit is the adequate expounder of what he inspired to be written in the Bible. Okay, so we pick up the Bible and read it over what the meaning of some text is. The best interpreter of what the Holy Spirit meant is the Holy Spirit himself. Now, where do we find what the Holy Spirit says? Well, it's in the Scripture. And so, I'm just trying to show that this is a very natural unfolding that should be commonsensical to us, that the Bible must be its own interpreter. Therefore, according to the Confession, when there is in question about the true and full sense of anything, it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly. This teaches us that no sense can be given to any particular text which is out of harmony with other texts. If somebody is interpreting the Bible for you and says this verse means the following, but you know other verses that contradict that interpretation, that immediately disqualifies this alleged interpretation of the Bible. No sense or meaning can be given to any text which is contradicted elsewhere in the Bible. It means also that other portions of scripture can help make the meaning of a difficult text more readily understandable. So we have a rule that the Bible is not to be made to contradict itself, and also a guideline, a help to us, that if you're unclear about some passage, you need to study more of scripture so the difficult text will become more readily understandable. Now that being the case, obviously we are to reason from the clear teaching of scripture to the obscure teaching of scripture. You don't begin with an obscure difficult text and then go to other texts and make them conform with it. But you start with the clear text and then you go to the ones that are more difficult. Let me see if I can give you, I think, outrageous illustration of the violation of this rule in our own day and age in evangelical circles. Sometimes we have dispensationalists go to prophetic portions of scripture, or especially the book of Revelation, and they work out what they think these things mean. And then they go to other passages of scripture that are more didactic or epistolary, you know, like the works of Paul or something like that, and they have to make those texts conform to their interpretation of the prophetic text. Now that's got it backwards. Obviously we ought to go to those clear statements where figurative language, poetic expression is not being used, and gain an understanding and let that understanding be the stepping stone for getting at what the prophetic or the apocalyptic text have to mean. For instance, if you have read Old Testament prophecy to teach the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, the reinstitution of animal sacrifices, yet the book of Hebrews clearly declares that's an abomination to continue the animal sacrifices, you should think that obviously you go back and change your reading of the prophetic text in Ezekiel or what have you. That's the obscure, the clear declaration in the epistle to the Hebrews should guide us. But I have seen numerous times in my own life, people say, well, the book of Hebrews must be qualified by what Ezekiel says. It is wrong for the Jews in that day and age to follow the animal sacrifices, but when they are reinstituted they will be a memorial of the sacrifice of Christ. So we can still hold on to our interpretation of the prophetic text in Ezekiel. You see, that has it all backwards. The Puritans knew better than that. You work from the clear to the controversial or the obscure text and not the other way around. This is a really obvious rule of interpretation. It's the way you would want to be interpreted. If someone picked up your writings or something you'd said, you'd want to start with what is obvious and clear and then let it be a guide to resolving ambiguities or obscurity in things that you had said elsewhere. I say this is an obvious rule of interpretation, but it's not a very helpful rule. Well, it's not helpful in resolving a dispute between two believers about the meaning of a particular text. You stop and think about it. The reason it's not going to be helpful is that usually, not always, but usually when two believers are in a life and death struggle over how you interpret some text, they're also going to dispute over what is more clear and what is less clear. Both could say, of course, we go to the clear first and then we take the controversial in light of what is clear. But if push comes to shove, they're going to disagree also over which is the more clear and what is the less clear. Now, I don't happen to think that Jehovah's Witnesses are believers, and so it's not as good an illustration as what happens when we talk to our brothers and sisters in the church. But I can give you an illustration of this sort of thing. Jehovah's Witnesses sitting in my front room one day, and wanting to prove that Jesus is not fully and eternally God, goes to the text in Colossians 2, where Jesus is called the firstborn of all creation. It's there. It's obvious then, Jesus is the first created thing. I say, well as a matter of fact, that expression, firstborn, can be taken in different ways. It's not only a reference, in some cases, to literal birth, first in the series, but it also is a legal position, the one who inherits all things from the Father. So the firstborn of all creation could mean the one who owns all of creation in virtue of the Father's decree to him, and it does not have to mean the first in the series of things created. And in fact, other texts that I can go to show that Jesus was not created, so he could not be the first born in the literal sense of creation, the first created thing. And so the Jehovah's Witness tells me that I'm wrong because this text clearly teaches that Jesus is the first created thing. And I say, well, but as a rule of interpretation we should start We've got a controversy on this verse. Let's go to the other verses of scripture where there's a straight out statement that Jesus is eternal or whatever it may be, and we'll see that your interpretation cannot be accepted. To which the Jehovah's Witness says to me, this verse is more clear than the verses you're going to. So that's what I'm getting at. This is an obvious rule of interpretation, but I think you need to expect a sense of frustration or disappointment when you try to apply it in the case of a tough dispute with somebody because what will happen is the dispute will change from what this verse means to what is clear and what is not clear. When people have their minds made up in advance, you see, you're not going to be able with this one rule to shape them, not in all cases, although in some cases you can. Anyway, the confession has taught us that the infallible rule, that standard of interpretation is not political, it's rational. And that specifically scripture interprets scripture, so that where there's a question about the true and the full sense of any scripture, it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly. And I'm going to try to illustrate for you four different ways in which the Bible interprets itself. Sometimes scripture offers its own explicit commentary on something that was revealed earlier. Let me pass out some text for you all to be prepared to read. Dave Acts 2 verses 25 to 31. Nathan are you ready here? Can you help us with Romans 9 24 to 26? And Brendan Revelation 17 verse 7. Barbara, Romans 4, 13. Rob, Hebrews 10, verses 1 and 2. Glenn, John 1, 14. And Vicki, John 2, verse 21. So if we all look those up and we can go through these illustrations expeditiously. Romans 9, excuse me, Romans 9, 24-26. Okay, I'm going to give four different ways, probably others could be added, but four ways that should be clear to us where Scripture helps interpret Scripture. Sometimes, Scripture offers its own explicit commentary on something revealed earlier, Acts 2, 25-31. For David says of him, I was always beholding the Lord in my presence, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue exulted. However, my flesh also will abide in hope, because thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades or allow my Holy One to undergo decay. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life. Thou wilt make me full of gladness with thy presence. Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us today. And so because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to set one of his descendants upon the throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades nor did his flesh suffer decay. So here, Peter quotes a section from Psalm 16, and he goes on to say, David looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection by these words. So here's one portion of scripture, Acts 2, that tells us the meaning of another portion of scripture, Acts 16. So this is the most obvious way in which scripture interprets scripture, when it comes right out and says, here's the meaning of what that text is. Another one, Romans 9, 24 to 26. even as whom he also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. As he says also in Hosea, I will call those who were not my people, my people, and who were not beloved, beloved. And it shall be that in a place where it was said to them, you are not my people, their faith shall be called servitude unto God. And I bear Christ as His individual. That's okay, we can stop at that point. He goes on to Isaiah here, that here Paul is trying to prove that God's intention was to save the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and he quotes Hosea, so that we might understand that when God declared through Hosea, those who are not called my people will be called my people, that that text meant that the Gentiles would be included along with the Jews. Revelation 17 verse 7 is another illustration of how scripture interprets something previously revealed. And the angel said to him, why do you wonder, I have heard of the mystery of the Lord and of the Jews, that through the Holy Shadow of the Son of God Here the angel says to John, why are you in confusion about this vision that you have? God has revealed the woman across the seven heads of the beast and so forth, and John wonders what great wonder, to use the King James, and the angel says, I will tell you the meaning of the mystery. So scripture here offers an interpretation of what has already been revealed. That's one of the four ways that I can think of that scripture interprets scripture. Another, secondly, sometimes scripture shows us that the meaning was broader than the original explicit words, that the meaning was broader than what might have appeared in the original explicit words taken out of context. Romans 4.13. The reason I had Barbara read this is because Paul says that the promise to Abraham was that he'd be heir of the world. The difficulty is you won't find that in the Old Testament. The promise to Abraham was that he'd be heir of Palestine, the promised land. And so Paul, in using these words, referring to things said to Abraham in the Old Testament, shows us that in the Old Testament what God promised Abraham was only a token, part for whole as we say. God showed part of what he intended by promising in Palestine, but Palestine was a symbol or a picture for the whole world being given to God's people. And so here scripture helps us to understand what was being said in the Old Testament scriptures. Thirdly, sometimes the Bible draws out the implications of what was originally said. Just a second ago I said that the Bible sometimes shows a broader meaning or application than what you might have thought when you just read that Abraham has promised Palestine. It turns out that that had a broader application that scripture now shows us, Abraham was promised the world. But now in this third illustration what I'm getting at is that the Bible draws out the implications of something that was said, not just broadens the application but shows us the implications of what was said. Hebrews 10 verses 1 and 2. For the law, since it has only a shadow to give things to come, and not the very form of things, can never but some sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of things. Here the author of Hebrews says, that if you think about it, you could have known from the Old Testament itself that the sacrifices were inadequate. Why? Because they continued to be offered. If an adequate sacrifice had been made, that would have ended everything right then. So this is not something like reading between the lines. It's rather stopping to say now, what is the implication of the continuation of the sacrifices that we read about in the Old Testament? So here's Scripture, is interpreting Scripture, by helping us see the logical implication of it. And then fourthly, sometimes the Bible provides further information on the same or similar subject, and therefore interprets itself. This is not a case of the Bible saying, okay, here's what this verse means, or here's a broader application of this verse, or here's an implication of this verse for teaching. Sometimes we can go to the Bible and learn more things about the subject of a verse or a text or a similar subject and thereby gain help in understanding the text that confused us. The illustration I've chosen here is John 1.14 with John 2.21. Why don't we begin with John 2.21? That he was speaking of the temple of his body. In this particular context, Jesus has said, if you destroy this temple, I will raise it in three days. The Jews are all in a huff over this. The leaders are really angry about Jesus talking that way. Then, John tells us, by the way, here's a case where the Bible interprets the Bible. The Bible reports Jesus saying, destroy this temple. John says he was referring to his body, not to the building over here. But now, what does that mean, that he's referring to his body? How could Jesus be referring to his body? Destroy this temple, and I'll raise it in three days. Now granted, you all know the answer, because you know the three days, you know, resurrection imagery means that he's going to rise from the dead. But why would Jesus talk that way? Why does he call his body the temple? Well, as far as I know, there's no text where The Bible says this is what this verse means. But there's plenty of other information that bears on this. So as one example, John 1.14. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld its glory, glory as if it only had gotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Okay, now in English we're not helped as much as we would if you knew Greek. I'm sorry about that. But I think most of you probably heard that when John says and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word dwelt means tabernacled among us. So Jesus takes on, I mean Jesus is the son of God incarnate, enfleshed and his flesh then is the tabernacle of God among us. That helps us to understand how in the second chapter of John he can say destroy this temple or tabernacle and I'll raise it up. I'm the temple of God, I'm going to raise it up in three days after you kill me. And then if we don't have the time to do this, I have tapes on it if you'd like to pursue it. If you look at the Old Testament, there's a great deal of teaching about the significance of the tabernacle and the temple. And I'll boil it all down for you that the tabernacle is where God dwells in the midst of his people. So Jesus comes into this world and tabernacles among us. He is incarnate God dwelling in the midst of his people. He is God in our very midst. And so Jesus says, you destroy me, you reject me, but I will raise up this temple, God in the midst of his people, in three days. Okay, so here's where the Bible helps interpret the Bible, but not by it pointing explicitly to something but by our drawn together texts that have a similar theme or talk about the same subject. Sometimes this rule of the Bible interpreting the Bible is called the analogy of faith. The analogy of faith. And I wish I could give you a good explanation of the source of that phraseology. I've never run into anything that's either stuck with me or convinced me. That's a strange expression, I realize, but I've gotten used to using it. You will too. The analogy of faith simply means that there's a general scheme of divine truth so that different sections of scripture mutually supplement each other and explain each other. The analogy of faith means when one text, you know, leaves you kind of bewildered or confused, there's other texts of scripture that will supplement and I throw light on it to help you understand it. The analogy of faith assumes the coherence of God's revelation. That there's nothing in the Bible that is contradictory with anything else in the Bible. So that the meaning of a text, if you hold to the analogy of faith, the meaning of a text is to be sought in the light of scripture as a whole, not in the light of tradition or speculation or church opinion. So what we do is to find what this text means, we go to something that's analogous to it and we look at the statement of the faith, the analogy of faith, not church tradition, not philosophical speculation or any human opinion. There's one other aspect of this section of the confession before we get done tonight that we should stop and reflect on. We're told the infallible rule of interpretation of scripture is the scripture itself, that's the analogy of faith. And therefore when there's a question about the true and full sense of any scripture, notice the parentheses, which is not manifold but one. It must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly. Here the writers of the confession reject the medieval approach to interpretation. that said there was a three or a four-fold sense to the Bible. Depends on which medieval writer you're following here. And these different senses can have completely separate meanings and applications. You have the literal sense, the plain meaning of the text. You have the moral sense of the text. And then you have the spiritual sense of the text. And in some writers you have the apagogical meaning, which is the heavenly meaning of the text, what it will mean for the future. So to take a common illustration, if you read a text that speaks of Jerusalem, there are three or four meanings to this text. First, there's the historical meaning, the city in Palestine that we call Jerusalem. But there's the moral sense too, whatever it says about Jerusalem applies to the capital of man's soul, because Jerusalem was the capital of God's people. But then there's also the spiritual sense, which teaches us something about doctrine, something about God. And then there's also the heavenly Jerusalem sense that teaches us about heaven. You know, what it will be like once we leave this world and transcend time and space. So you can imagine all the fanciful and ridiculous and worthless things that can be done when you approach the Bible and say, well now, do you want to take it literally or morally or analogically? Do you want to take it spiritually or apagogically? The Puritans said, forget all that. The meaning of Scripture is not manifold. It's not two, three, four different ways of interpreting. It's one. Now, does this mean that scripture cannot have a complex meaning? Complex meaning two things related to each other, but there's more to it than what might first meet the eye. No, it doesn't rule that out. In fact, if you look at the statement of the confession, we're told right before the parenthesis Therefore, when there is a question about the true, noticed, and full sense of any scripture. So the writers of the Confession grant that the sense of scripture can be a full and complex matter. Let's remember the example from Romans chapter 4 where Paul tells us the promises to Abraham about Palestine were real promises about the earth. Now does that mean that they were not promises about Palestine? No, they were, but there's more to it than that. And these two meanings are not separate, certainly not in conflict, one's the extension of the other. So there's a fuller sense than just thinking about the sand of Palestine when you read those promises, a fuller sense. But that's different from the medieval approach that says, well now what's Generally speaking, the Protestant approach to interpretation is known as literal interpretation. But in our day and age, literal interpretation is not understood properly. Literal means according to the letter. And when you do literal interpretation, that means you're going to interpret the Bible according to what it says, rather than reading what the Holy Spirit is telling you between the lines. There's no spiritual or mystical interpretation of the Bible. Literal had nothing to do with whether figures of speech are used or not used in the Bible. Today when people say, I interpret the Bible literally, they often mean, I don't take it as a figure of speech. Well, when John writes that there's going to be a seven-headed monster that comes out of the Mediterranean Sea, That is a figure of speech and no one, even people who claim with all their heart that they are literalists, no one takes that literally. If you mean by literally, just as it is described and not as a figure for something else. But even the figures of speech are to be, quote, literally interpreted, meaning we understand them by looking at the letter, at what is actually written rather than consulting the mystical sense that the Holy Spirit gives me when I encounter this text. So we believe in literal interpretation, we believe in grammatical-historical interpretation. That's another expression we'll sometimes run into. Grammatical-historical means the literal meaning in its historical setting. Gramma here doesn't mean grammatical so much technically as English grammar is studied. the gramma meaning letter, the grammatical or the written philological sense in its historical setting. Because it doesn't do any good to take the meaning of words from say the 17th century and then try to plow them back into the scripture when it was written back in the first century. So you look at the meaning of the text in light of its historical setting. So we believe in literal interpretation, which simply means you go by the written word, not by the mystical sense. And we believe in grammatical historical interpretation, reading the Bible in its own historical setting, according to what is actually in the text. And when we do not clearly understand or have trouble with what the Bible says at some point, we go to what the Bible says elsewhere to understand it. We don't go to the political decrees of some church hierarchy. So that, in essence, is what we have in this short section of the confession. Would you like to ask any questions on tonight's lesson? You identified the four-layered approach as being other than just the plain, the moral, lastly, the apagogical, or heavenly, or mystical approach. What was the third? is the spiritual and mystical, which tells us about matters of doctrine and faith. Is it a word of influence that the glory is so departed from Israel that when It is said that God tabernacled with us in Christ's person, that the Shekinah at the presence tabernacled their own look and not in the temple at that point. The Shekinah glory with God dwelt in the temple at that time. When John tells us that Jesus tabernacled among us and that the glory of the only begotten was there, I think he intends for us to say that the Shekinah glory of God is found in Christ. So when Christ is crucified and the barrel of the temple is torn in two, then the glory of God is no longer found there, but rather on the cross. Jesus said that if he were raised up from the earth, that God would there glorify him, and all men would see his glory. So Jesus on the cross is the Shekinah glory of God, and it's no longer found in the tabernacle. All of this is fascinating and can be pursued, The point is that we have to let scripture control what we say about these things, and not just let our imaginations run away with us. In our day and age, we have some very clever teachers, and I don't mean that necessarily in a derogatory way, clever teachers, who have artistic imagination, and they say all sorts of things, and as they say, they like to maximize the interpretation of what's found in the Bible. And that scares me because I want to get the full sense of scripture. I want scripture to control what its full sense is and not human imagination. Other questions? In the Council of Trentland they say consensus of the church fathers. pretty vague in itself because they counter-dictate themselves so much on a lot of areas, or even some that you would consider general. Actually, I would strengthen your criticism. It's not that it's vague, it's just downright bogus. There was no consensus among the Church Fathers. Peter Abelard wrote a book that got him in a lot of trouble entitled Sic et Non, in Latin, Yes and No, in which he pitted the Church Fathers against one another on a number of key doctrinal points. And so he said, when the church appeals to the consensus of the church fathers, he says, you're appealing to something that doesn't exist. They disagreed with one another. Does anyone have a copy of this book? Oh, I would imagine, yeah. I don't happen to have one. I'm not sure if it's printed, but I should be able to put our hands on it. Let me ask Mike. Has a test piece to help categorize four different types of ways that scripture interprets itself. What would you put the passage where Paul talks about the odds, not muzzling the odds, would you put that under the expansion and Paul bringing out the broader meaning, or was he teasing out implications from the previous version? If any, the choices, that would be the one that he's showing the implications. But I wouldn't call it that. By implications, I mean drawing logical extensions that are not there, you know, obvious in the text or drawn out for us in the original text. In the case that you brought up about Paul applying, not muscling the ox to the preacher, I think he's taking the figure of speech in the way that it was originally meant by God, and just says, remember, God says, and God gives the illustration of the ox, and even back then they knew it applied beyond oxen. So I don't see that so much as scripture interpreting scripture, I think that's just an application of scripture. But now some people would say, well, all the law meant was you have to take care of your oxen. But then see, Paul says right in the text, you appeal to, God doesn't care about oxen, does he? I think in the sense that Paul meant it. God doesn't care merely about oxen. It's just a wooden and mistaken reading of scripture to think that the law didn't apply to things beyond oxen. The oxen was just the illustration of a general principle. In the text where that appears, isn't it so isolated, the reference to oxen is so isolated that it appears that he's using metaphor even in that text. in 1 Corinthians 9 in the citation in the law? Oh, well, like I said, there are some people who really abuse the scripture and they say that's all God cared about I guess. But if you read the law broadly, you'll see that God uses concrete illustrations for moral principles. And I don't think a sensitive reading of the law would ever have led anybody to think he was only talking about optimism. Or think about the flying axe head. Are we to believe that God doesn't want that principle applied to flying sickle blades? If a sickle blade comes out of its handle and kills somebody? Well, the principle is being illustrated, and so what Paul does here in 1 Corinthians 9 is he just takes the illustration and applies it the way it would have been even in the original case, I think. Good questions. Do you have any other ones you want to ask? Barbara? You know, this is kind of an academic exercise. We talk about education and there are people who lost their lives over this that we take for granted. Oh, yeah. And I'm sure it's great knowledge, but it's good to be reminded that it's good for me that this is a great doctrine that we have the freedom to believe in. We don't have the freedom to believe anything we want, but we have the freedom to go directly to the Bible and not through the agency of the Church. There were plenty of people who disagreed with the Roman Catholic interpretation of Jesus' words, this is my body. And because they disagreed with the magisterial interpretation of Rome, the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Inquisition killed these people. Where has it been fought over the right of individuals to go to the Bible and interpret it directly with the guidance of the Holy Spirit rather than the conscience-binding authority of the Church? So I appreciate you bringing that out for us, and let's remember, because it's being lost again in our day, I'm afraid. The Protestant doctrine of private interpretation is not being respected or understood how important it is. We will lose our own ecclesiastical and eventually political liberties if we don't hold to it.