“Unless we do understand the principles of the interpretation of the Bible, the Bible is not an open book.”
(Austin Sparks)
The watchman has been thus convicted. It is his heart
desire that the Bible be open to everyone who seek to hear God’s voice
with all his heart, soul, mind and strength.
Recall the time when our Lord Jesus walked the Emmaus Road (a road
out of the Old Gate) with his two disciples, how He walked the seven
miles and expounded the Scripture to them about Himself. (Luke 24:27
“And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in
all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”)
Below is the whole passage (from Austin Sparks’ book “the Persistent
Purpose of God”) on how to interpret the Bible from the Ancient Way.
Readers may download the whole book using the link to the author’s site.
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Chapter 1 – God’s Full Intention Governs Everything That He Does
We
are going to occupy the first part of this morning with preparation for
what we are going to consider later, and I want to speak now about some
principles of Biblical interpretation. It is very important for us to
be able to know how the Bible is to be interpreted, and this will be
especially seen in what we have to consider later on. Unless we do
understand the principles of the interpretation of the Bible, the Bible
is not an open book; we may know what is in the Book as a book, but we
do not understand it until we have the principles of interpretation. So I
ask you to try and remember what I am going to say now and bring it
over into our later study. We will consider five important principles of
interpreting the Bible:
1. The Eternity of God;
2. The Comprehensiveness of Christ;
3. The Interpreter of the Bible is the Holy Spirit;
4. The Final Mention;
5. The Only Real Value is the Spiritual.
(1.) The Eternity Of God
The
first principle of the interpretation of the Bible is the eternity of
God. We must always remember that all time is present time with God.
There is no past and future with God: all that is past and future with
us has been present with God always. At any moment in what is time to
us, eternity is present with God.
The
architect always has the completed plan before him. If he is the
designer of a ship, he has a model made of that ship before anything is
done. He sees in the model the completed object, that is, exactly how
the thing will appear when it is finished. If it is a great building, or
even a city, it is the same. The architect draws what we call a scale
model, and he sees in that model exactly how the building, or the city,
will be when it is finished. The builder works day by day according to
that completed plan. Those who only see the parts cannot understand, and
must not take the parts as being the whole. Sometimes when you look at
the parts of a building, you cannot for the life of you understand what
it is going to be. It is only as the completed thing is seen that you
can understand the parts.
Now
the Bible is just full of parts, but they are all the parts of
something that God sees in completion. God is the Great Architect, He
has the completed and perfect plan before Him before He begins any work.
God’s eternity is in every part. So we must realize that God has His
full Mind behind everything that He does! GOD’S FULL INTENTION GOVERNS EVERYTHING THAT HE DOES! You must realize that God’s Mind never grows – God Himself is incapable of development.
The temporary form of anything contains the eternal and full thought of God. You must realize that there are always TWO MEANINGS
in anything that is in the Bible. There is the present meaning, that
is, how that applies to the present situation; but there is also the
future meaning. Everything in the Bible, while it has a present
application, has a fuller meaning in the future. That is the first law
of interpretation: it is the eternity of God.
(2.) The Comprehensiveness Of Christ
The
second law of interpretation is the comprehensiveness of Christ. Christ
is the interpretation of all the Bible, to know Christ is to understand
the Bible. Men like Peter and Paul knew the Bible, but they did not
understand it until they knew the Lord Jesus. We first know the Lord
Jesus, and then we take Him back into the Bible, and He is the
interpretation of the Bible. Therefore, we cannot really understand the
Bible until we know the Lord Jesus. That results in this – that the
Bible is really a Person, and not a book. The Bible is a Living Person,
and not a dead letter. Because this Person is inexhaustible, He makes
the Bible inexhaustible.
Now
that is a more important principle than perhaps you realize. It is
possible to exhaust the Bible as a book. We have known great Bible
teachers who went through the Bible teaching it again and again, but at
the end of their lives they were having difficulty in finding something
fresh; and they were only repeating again and again things that they had
said in past years. The reason for this is that they dealt with the
Bible as a book. That will never happen if you know the Lord Jesus and
see the Bible in Him, and Him in the Bible. I repeat that the Lord Jesus
can never be exhausted. As the Holy Spirit reveals the Lord Jesus to
us, the Bible is always more alive. So, we have our first two principles
of interpretation: (1) The Eternity of God and (2) The
Comprehensiveness of Christ.
(3.) The Interpreter Of The Bible Is The Holy Spirit
Now
we come to number three: the interpreter of the Bible is the Holy
Spirit. I have said that Jesus is the interpretation of the Bible. I am
saying now that the Holy Spirit is the INTERPRETER of the
Bible. We are familiar with the words in the Letter to the Corinthians,
but let us just look at them again now. The First letter to the
Corinthians, chapter two and verse thirteen: “Which things we also
speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the
Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.“
Now
I do not know if you have marginal references in your Bible but the
more correct translation of those words is this: “interpreting spiritual
things to spiritual men.” Let us read the whole passage again in that
way:
Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; interpreting spiritual things to spiritual men.
That
scripture is a very important statement, and it definitely affirms the
principle that we are now setting forth – the interpreter of the Bible
is the Holy Spirit. First of all then, the Bible is the Holy Spirit’s
Book. The Bible is not firstly man’s Book, it is not our Book, we have
not got the Book. We have got certain writings which are called
Scripture, but in truth we do not possess the Book.
You
remember the case in Acts of the Ethiopian eunuch. When Philip came
near to his chariot, he heard the Ethiopian reading. He was reading the
Book at Isaiah 53. Philip said to him, “Do you understand what you are
reading?” and he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?”
Here is a man who had the Book in a certain sense, but in a real and
profitable sense he did not possess the Book. We can have the Book as a
volume, and yet we may not possess the Book, because the Bible is the
Holy Spirit’s Book first. The mind of man and the Mind of the Spirit are
two altogether different things!
Do
you know that there are many, many Christians who do not recognize
that! There are many Bible teachers who do not recognize that! And this
is the cause of very much confusion, and the reason for very much
spiritual smallness and weakness. I think this may lie at the bottom of
most of the controversy. THE BIBLE IS A CLOSED BOOK TO ALL BUT SPIRITUAL MEN. This is the principle that the Lord Jesus set before Nicodemus: You must be born from above before you can see what is above.
Our measure of understanding of the Bible will be just in accordance with the measure of our spiritual life.
This is why the Lord takes us through experiences in order to bring us
to understanding. The measure of our death to the natural mind will be
the measure of our understanding of the things of the Spirit. Please
remember that in these days which are before us – something has got to
happen IN US before we understand the Scripture. We cannot
understand the Word of God by just deciding that we are going to have a
training course, that we are going to have some classes for Bible
teaching. No, that is not the way in which we come to understanding of
the Word of God. We shall only understand according to the measure of
our spiritual life. That is the third principle of Biblical
interpretation. Now we come to the fourth.
(4.) The Final Mention
The
final mention of any particular matter in the Bible is usually a key to
all its meaning. That is something that we must think about! We find
certain things mentioned again and again in the Bible; but when we come
to the final occasion where that thing is mentioned, we usually find the
key to all that has been said about that matter before. If you take a
particular matter, where it is mentioned for the last time, and then
note the setting and the context and the relationship, you will get the
full meaning of all that has been said about that before.
Now
that is a statement that I have made, and you will need to think and to
work on that, but I will help you by taking just one illustration. In
the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation twenty-two and verse two, we
have the last reference to “the tree of life.” Now when we go right back to the beginning of the Bible, we have “the tree of life”
mentioned, but we are told nothing about it – it is just referred to as
something that exists. We have no explanation, we are not told what
that tree is, or what it means; it is just referred to as “the tree of life.”
We have to go to the end of the Bible for the explanation, and when we
come to this last chapter of the Bible, by the context and relationship,
we have a very large explanation.
Let us look at the passage. Revelation 22: “And He showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb,” - note the context, ‘the throne of God and of the Lamb.’ you
have got to read the whole book of the Revelation to understand that!
There is a tremendous amount in the early chapters of this book about “the throne of God and of the Lamb.” And
you need to understand what the throne of God is and what is the
significance of the throne of the Lamb – in the midst of the throne is a
Lamb!
Now in relation to “the throne of God and of the Lamb,” there is “a
river of the water of life… in the midst of the street thereof. And on
either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner
(kinds) of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the
tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall no longer be
any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and
His bond servants shall serve Him.” There is “the tree of life.” It bears immortal fruit. THERE IS NO PLACE FOR DEATH HERE. Its fruit is born every month: this is fruit immortal, or fruit without death. The leaves of this tree are for the HEALTH of
the nations. I am sorry that in most versions the word “healing” is
wrongly translated. I do not know what the word is in your translation,
but the original is not for “the healing of the nations,” but for “the
health of the nations.” You may ask, “What is the difference?” Well, one
is THE REMOVAL OF DISEASE and the other is THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE.
In
Revelation 22, we have come to the time when the spiritual diseases of
the nations have been healed, but the health of the nations needs to be
preserved. It is a state that is to be maintained. Thus, the leaves are
not for healing, they are for preservation. And so it says: “And there shall no longer be any curse.”
You
see, you have got the whole history of the Bible in those words. You
have got all that came on the nations through Adam’s sin. You have
corruption and death – moral disease – the result of a curse. All that
is now cleared up, and “the tree of life” represents VICTORY OF LIFE over all that, Life Triumphant, and Life Abundant. Here the full meaning of “the tree of life”
is revealed. And it is like that with all other matters. When you come
to the last mention, you have the key to the whole subject. That is a
principle of the interpretation of the Bible.
(5.) The Only Real Value Is The Spiritual
Now
I come to the last principle for the present, number five: the only
real value is the spiritual. We must remember this when we are reading
and studying the Bible, and we must keep this in mind in these times in
which we are together. We must not come here just with a thirst for more
information or a craving for more knowledge. There are people who just
want to get more and more knowledge and education. Now that constitutes a
danger. That is exactly how Adam was caught. You see, Satan said: “If
you take of this tree, you will know”; it was “the tree of knowledge.”
And there is always a danger in eating of that tree. It might just lead
us into death and not into life. So, I repeat this principle of Biblical
interpretation: the only real value is the spiritual. And spiritual
value is just how something affects our life with God! I do wish that
Adam had recognized that! When Satan tempted him to take of “the tree of
knowledge,” if only Adam had said, “How will this affect my life with
God?” he, and we, should have been saved all the trouble.
So, let me say this again, spiritual value is just how something affects our life with God. Shall I put that in another way – spiritual value is just how much something increases the measure of Christ. If Christ is the interpretation of the Bible, then the spiritual knowledge of the Bible results in an increase of Christ. If our days together do not result in an increase of the measure of Christ, we have missed the Way.
If we do not go away more Christ-like men and women, with a larger
measure of the Lord Jesus, this training course has failed. So I beg of
you to pray all the way through that this time together may mean SPIRITUAL INCREASE and not intellectual enlargement, but SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.
Everything has got to be judged by how much it contributes to the Ultimate Purpose of God. We have to ask, “Where does this lead us? Is it leading us anywhere? What is it leading us to?” All spiritual knowledge leads to an increase of Christ; it contributes to the ultimate purpose of God.
The
question always is “How much of Life is there in it?” It is not a
matter of interest; it is not a matter of fascination with Bible truth;
it is not a matter of making us more important people, by the enlarging
of our natural stature, but it is just a matter of the measure of Christ. That is the real spiritual value.
Now,
let us go over our five principles of the interpretation of the Bible.
In our second hour together we shall take them over into our special
subject for study, just as we will continue to do in the coming days:
(1) The Eternity of God; (2) The Comprehensiveness of Christ; (3) The
Interpreter is the Holy Spirit; (4) The Final Mention of Everything
Containing all its Meaning; and (5) The Real Value is the Spiritual.
Also,
brethren, before the next session, I would like for you to read the
first three chapters of the Prophet Ezekiel. You will have to read them
more than once in these coming days, but it would be a help if you will
refresh your minds with what is in those three chapters.
