Two Methods Of Interpretation:
The Spiritual And The Carnal
Which
method did many disciples use when Jesus said, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you,” “From that time many of His disciples went back and
walked with Him no more.” “When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples
complained about this, He said to them, ‘Does this offend you?... [Do you
stumble at this?] It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.
The words that I speak to you [My method] are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you [because of the carnal
method] who do not believe’” (John 6:60-63).
The spiritual method gives life and the
carnal method profits nothing. They interpreted Jesus literally and Jesus
implies that their method was the carnal method.
Which Method Did
The Judaizers Use?
By insisting on circumcision they would
argue that the sign of God’s covenant is eternal and therefore still required.
God said, “I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant,
and with his descendants after him”
(Gen 17:19). They were correct in saying that circumcision is still required,
but could not understand that it is fulfilled in baptism. “In
him also you were circumcised… in baptism… (Colossians 2:11-12 ESV). Paul used the
spiritual method by insisting that the weak and beggarly elements of the
ceremonial laws were only shadows of the substance fulfilled in Christ.
The Spiritual
Method
Allegories, types, copies, shadows, symbols,
analogies, figurative speech, riddles, and parables fall into the category of
the spiritual method.
Paul used allegories and types to
interpret the Scriptures. He said the literal history of Hagar and Sarah “may
be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants” (Gal 4:24 – Greek allegoreo). Hagar represented Old Jerusalem
and Sarah represented New Jerusalem.
The Corinthians
Used The Carnal Method
Paul said he could not address the
Corinthians as spiritual people, but “as people of the flesh, as infants” (1
Corinthians 3:1 ESV). He was
referring to the two methods of interpretation: the spiritual and the carnal. He
calls the carnal method infantile. Children can’t make analogies. When you tell
a child that it is raining cats and dogs, he looks out the window for literal
cats and dogs.
What Is Jerusalem
Called Spiritually?
The Holy Spirit calls it the great city
that “spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified”
(Revelation 11:8). The Greek word translated “spiritually” is pneumatikos. If old Jerusalem
is called Sodom and Egypt by the spiritual method, what would it be called by the carnal method? Would it not be the
opposite of Sodom and Egypt? Would not the carnal method call it the Holy City?
If God calls the church the New Jerusalem and the Israel of God (Gal 6:16),
what would the carnal method call unbelieving Jews? Would they not call them the
opposite of what the spiritual method calls them? Which method did Jesus use
when He said, “I know the blasphemy of those
who say they are Jews and are not, but are
a synagogue of Satan” (Rev 2:9)?
What Does Jesus
Call Unbelieving Jews?
He called them “children of the devil” (John
8:44). Was He using the carnal method or the spiritual? To Jews, Gentiles were
children of the devil, so to them, Jesus was
actually implying that they were
really Gentiles. The spiritual view is the view of reality and not the literal
view. In spite of what Jesus called them, the carnal method insists they are still
God’s people even though they deny Christ. However, there is one advantage of being carnal Jews: that “to them were
committed the oracles of God” (Rom 3:1-2).
Hebrews 5 Calls
The Carnal Method Childish
“You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is
unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child” (Hebrews
5:12-14). Since he is a child (spiritually), he tends toward the literal “cats
and dogs” interpretation and cannot make the analogy. He sees literal
circumcision and literal Jews instead of what those shadows represented. But we
do not look at the things that are seen. We look at the things that are not
seen (2 Cor 4:18).
Dwight Pentecost, in his book, “Things
To Come,” boasted that dispensationalists use the literal method of
interpretation. The spiritual method mixes both the literal and the figurative.
The carnal method uses one or the other, not both. The “one and the many”
demands both.
It Depends On The
Context
Sometimes in visions, an angel
interprets the symbol in literal terms. For example, the angel says, “the seven
lampstands that you saw are the seven churches” (Rev 1:20). Note that he did
not say the stars “represent” the seven churches, but “are” the seven churches.
He did mean they represented the churches, but this method of the apostles and
the Holy Spirit was understood.
Peter Enns Versus The Apostles
Peter Enns says in his book, Inspiration And Incarnation[1]
that the method of the apostles in interpreting the Old Testament seems
odd. He says, “The New Testament writers
do some odd things by our standards.” By
“our standards” I assume he means the standards that emerged after the Humanist
Enlightenment of the 18th Century.
He cites several examples of how the New Testament writers seemed to quote
Scripture out of context. He implies they
did not seem to use our so-called
“more enlightened” method.
Mr. Enns even thinks Jesus used an odd
method of proving the resurrection of the body by quoting, “I am the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… God is not
the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mat. 22:32). His answer certainly
stopped the mouths of the Sadducees. No
one dared to ask more. Why would that seem odd to Mr. Enns? Could it be that he is not even able to make
the analogy that the Sadducees made?
Mr. Enns mocks Paul for saying that the
Rock followed Israel in the wilderness. Enns’ inability to make analogies
pictured a rock rolling around in the desert. Paul evidently violated
post-enlightenment rules and mixed the metaphors by extending the cloud analogy
to a rock analogy. He obviously reasoned that both the cloud and the rock
represent Christ.
Does it seem like the wise and prudent
have never lodged in John Bunyan’s house of the Interpreter?
Did Moses Baptize?
Paul says all those in the exodus from
Egypt were baptized into Moses by passing through the sea and the cloud. Even
though they did not get wet, He saw this as a type of baptism. He also saw
eating the same spiritual food at Passover as a type of the Lord’s Supper. “But with
most of them God was not well pleased” (1 Cor 10:5). The analogy is that even
though one is baptized and takes the Lord’s Supper, he might not be saved.
Where Did The Apostles Learn The Spiritual Method?
Jesus taught them. Paul said the mystery that had been hidden
from the ages was now revealed through Christ (Col 1:26). Jesus said that “life” from the Old Testament
comes from those Scriptures that speak of Him (John 5:39).
The method used by the apostles believed
the literal historical account of the Scriptures, but also as allegories,
types, copies, and shadows of things that are fulfilled in Christ.
The Literal Versus The Spiritual
…is
another way of saying “the carnal versus the spiritual.” The word literal comes from the word letter. Paul said, “circumcision
is that of the heart, in the Spirit,
not in the letter” (Rom 2:29). He said “that we should serve in the newness of
the Spirit and not in the oldness of
the letter” (Rom 7:6). He said God “made us… as ministers of the new
covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the
Spirit gives life” (2Cor 3:6). Paul said the literal kills and Jesus said the carnal
method profits nothing.
There Were Two Jewish Allegorizing Schools
… in New Testament times:
that of the Jews in Palestine and that of the Jews in Alexandria. But men like
Philo of Alexandria were influenced by the fanciful method of the Greeks. The
Greeks did not believe Homer’s history (their bible) was literal, but only an
allegory. This is what modernists do. Paul, on the other hand said, “the spiritual is not
first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual” (1Cor 15:46). The Jewish Palestine
school took the history first as literal, and after that the spiritual analogy.
Matthew Shows That Christ Is The True Israel
…when
he seems to quote Hosea out of context.
“I called my Son out of Egypt” (Hos 11:1 and Mat. 2:15). The context in
Hosea shows he was not referring to Christ, he was referring to the nation of
Israel. But Matthew and the Holy Spirit
are showing us that Israel is a type of Christ.
The literal is also an allegory. It is
called, “the spiritual method of interpretation.”
Again Matthew Quotes Isaiah 7:14
…
and applies it to Christ. Isaiah was
talking about his own son as a sign to King Ahaz. He said, “My sons and I are signs and
wonders.”
How did Mathew make that
connection? It was by way of analogy. The literal is also a type.
When Jesus Was Taken To Nazareth,
…Matthew
says it was to fulfill what the prophet said: “He shall be a Nazarite.” Which prophet said that? It was said to Samson’s mother in Judges
13:5. Evidently Matthew and the Holy
Spirit saw Samson as a type of Christ in the same way that Jesus said, “There
is one greater than Solomon here… There is one greater than Jonah here… There is one greater than the Temple here”
(Mat 12:6,41,42). The same logic would
make Jesus the greater David, the greater Moses, the greater Joseph, etc.
Circumcision Was A Type
The first church council in Acts 15
decided on the issue of circumcision.
Evidently some of the believers in Jerusalem could not make the analogy
that circumcision was a type of baptism.
We still have that problem with many believers today. Paul tells us that Old Testament things were
written as types (Gr tupos) (1 Cor
10:11). Since Jesus was literally
circumcised, and believers are spiritually baptized into the body of Christ,
that means that believers are also circumcised.
They are circumcised by means of being baptized into Christ. “In him
also you were circumcised… in baptism… (Colossians 2:11-12 ESV).
Shadows Of Things To Come
So let no one
judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or
sabbaths, which are a shadow of things [that were] to come, but the substance
is of Christ (2:16-17 NKJV).
Using the spiritual method, Paul saw
the Old Testament history and ceremonial law as types of things that are
fulfilled in Christ.
The Unclean Foods Were Gentiles
(Acts 10)
(Enlightenment
wording would be, “Unclean foods represent
gentiles,” instead of were gentiles.)
Hebrews shows us that Christ is our high priest. He is our Temple (Rev 21). He is our Passover Lamb, etc.
The new moon-sabbaths were shadows.
Passover was a type of the Lord’s
Supper, and Christ is the Passover Lamb.
The Jews
Celebrated Pentecost for the giving
of the Law on Mt. Sinai. It was fulfilled when God poured out His Spirit and
put His Law in our hearts on the Day of Pentecost.
In the Feast of Tabernacles the feast
of trumpets is fulfilled as we trumpet the Gospel and tabernacle in world
evangelism, etc. This is how the apostles interpreted the Old Testament and
changed the customs. Jesus does not destroy the Law He fulfills it.
Should We
Handle The Old Testament
The Way The Apostles Did?
Well, if we do not, we certainly will
not understand it the way it should be understood. We are their heirs. We should honor our parents.
To
reject the authority of the apostles and their method of interpretation is to
do what Jude’s mockers were doing. They still creep into the church unnoticed,
“reject
authority, and speak evil of dignitaries” (Jude 8). “These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit” (Jude
19).
Some say it’s okay for the apostles to
do it, but not for us. But God says, “Do not be like the horse or like the mule, that have
no understanding, that must be harnessed with bit and bridle” (Psalm 32:9). “A
whip for the horse, A bridle for the donkey, And a rod for the fool’s back”
(Prov 26:3). If
we do not understand the apostolic method of interpretation, we certainly will
not understand the Lord and His word.
Sensual
Persons
The
word translated sensual is literally soulish. The Greek word is qucikov psuchikos; natural, of the soul or mind from which we get the word soul (psyche). James says,
“This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual
[soulish], demonic” (Jas 3:15). This same word is translated as the natural man (the soulish man) who does
not receive the things of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 2:14. The apostle Paul
makes the soulish man a synonym for the carnal man and the infantile man in 1
Corinthians 3. The spiritual method of interpretation is silly (foolish) to the
soulish man. He prefers the carnal and literalistic method. That’s why St. Augustine
before conversion, thought the Bible was silly until Ambrose explained that
much of it was allegorical. (I imagine that some will laugh at me for using the
spiritual method.)
Speaking of laughter, Sarah laughed and named Isaac
laughter. Ishmael laughed at Isaac. The Ishmael’s of the world still laugh at
Isaac, but God said, “In Isaac [laughter] your seed
shall be called,” in Isaac instead of carnal Ishmael.
The Spiritual Method Is Poetic
The
Psalms and Prophets are full of poetry. Robert Frost said, “Poetry provides the
one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another.” In every-day
speech we always speak poetically, and so does the Bible. Frost says,
Let us assume that your roommate has just come in out of a
rainstorm and you say to him, "Well, you're a pretty sight! Got slightly wet, didn't you?" And he replies, "Wet? I'm drowned! It’s raining cats and dogs outside, and my
raincoat's just like a sieve.”
It is likely that you and your roommate understand each
other well enough, and yet if you examine this conversation literally, that is
to say unimaginatively, you will find that you have been speaking
nonsense. Actually you have been
speaking figuratively. You have been
saying less than what you mean, or more than what you mean, or the opposite of
what you mean, or something else than what you mean. You did not mean that your roommate was a
pretty sight but that he was a wretched sight.
You did not mean that he got slightly wet but that he got very wet. Your
roommate did not mean that he got drowned but that he got drenched. It was not raining cats and dogs; it was
raining water. And your roommate's
raincoat is so unlike a sieve that not even a baby would confuse them.[2]
Note The Use Of “Is” Instead Of
“Represents”
When He
said, “This is My body,” post-enlightenment literalists would say, “This bread represents My body instead of it is My body.” “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit,
and they are life” (John 6:63).
When animals were sacrificed the animal
represented the worshipper. The apostles would say the goat was the worshipper. When David poured
out the water his men had risked their lives to bring him, he said, “Shall I
drink the blood
of these men who
have put their lives in jeopardy?”
If post-enlightenment men had been present, they might have corrected David with,
“That’s water, not blood. You should have said, ‘Shall I drink this water that
represents the blood of these men?’”
Visions
And Dreams
Visions are given
in signs and symbols. The literal method is the carnal method. The carnal
method is the infantile method. Children cannot make analogies. John was in
the Spirit when He saw the vision of The Revelation of Christ. Therefore it
must be interpreted spiritually except in the cases where the angel gives the
meaning of the literal interpretation of the symbols within the vision.
Therefore, because
it is a vision,
The
1000 Years Must Be Interpreted Spiritually
And
Not Literally
Since the angel does not interpret this
symbol, we must turn to see how it is used elsewhere in Scripture. For this we
must allow Scripture to interpret itself. “He owns the cattle on a thousand
hills” (Psalm 50:10). No one interprets that literally. It just means He owns an
undetermined number of cattle. He keeps His covenant to 1000 generations (Deut.
7:9). It simply means an undetermined number of generations. If we took that as
literal, we would have to say the Lord is not coming for 40,000 years from
Moses’ time. “For a day
in Your courts is
better than a thousand” (Psalm 84:10). To rule and reign with Christ a day is
as a thousand years. Using these examples of poetic language we can see that a
thousand is used poetically for an undetermined period of time. “But,
beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day” (2Pet 3:8).
The
Spiritual Method Seems Silly To The Natural Man
Using the spiritual method of interpretation, we must expect
to be mocked by educated people because Jesus said God has hidden these things
from the wise and the prudent and has revealed them to babies. To him it is not
logical. It seems too simple-minded, childish, and naïve. But God wants us to
be child-like in malice but mature in understanding. Both of these qualities
are combined in the spiritual method of interpretation. It has to do with “the
one and the many.”
Why Did
The Disciples Not Understand?
…when Jesus told them
three times that he would be killed and rise from the dead? It was possibly for
two reasons. One possible reason was since Jesus was always speaking
figuratively, they were not sure whether to interpret Him figuratively or
literally. Reason number two: the
literal interpretation would not fit their eschatology. They probably expected
the Messiah to overthrow Rome and rule the world from Jerusalem. How could He
be killed and still rule? They must have known that Daniel clearly said Messiah
would be cut off, but it seemed like a contradiction to their carnal method.
Not Bread,
But Leaven
When Jesus said, “Beware Of The Leaven Of The Pharisees,” the
disciples associated bread with leaven and thought He might be implying they
had forgotten to bring bread. This was a faulty analogy. Leaven is not bread.
It only reminded them of bread. Leaven is something to put in bread. The
correct analogy would be, “Something that is put in the Pharisees.” Jesus said,
“How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?--but to beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Mt 16:11). With what were they leavened? Luke
says, “Hypocrisy,” and Mathew says, “Their teaching.” It was both.
What Was
Their Leaven?
Was it not that they could not make the analogy between
outward righteousness and inward righteousness? Jesus said that in order for
the law to be fulfilled, our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the
Pharisees. It is not enough to not commit adultery. We must also not lust. The
literalist focuses on what is seen, while the spiritual man focuses on the
heart. “For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not
seen are
eternal” (2 Cor 4:18).
Figures
Of Speech And Faith
Jesus said, “I have said these things to you in figures of
speech… I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am
leaving the world and going to the Father.”
His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and
not using figurative speech! …this is why
we believe that you came from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming,
indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will
leave me alone” (John 16:25-32 ESV). Notice
how Jesus associates believing with understanding figurative speech.
When Jesus told the Jews “the kingdom of God will be taken
away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. …they perceived that
he was speaking about them” (Matthew 21:43-45 ESV). They made the analogy. Why
can’t some Christians do that?
Revelation
20
Now let’s look and see if we can
determine how the spiritual method interprets it Revelation 20.
[20:1] Then I saw
an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless
pit and a great chain. [2] And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent,
who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years... (Revelation
20:1-3 ESV)
The
Angel Coming Down Represents The Incarnation
Amillennialists note that the NT
affirms that Jesus’ first coming has already bound Satan and brought God’s
light to the nations. Mathew Henry and I agree.
“Or how can someone enter a strong
man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed
he may plunder his house” (Matthew 12:29 ESV).
“He disarmed the rulers and authorities
and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:15
ESV).
Michael Also Represents
Christ
We see
this binding of Satan depicted again in Revelation 12 with Michael defeating
Satan. “And the great dragon was thrown down… to the earth, and his angels were
thrown down with him.” Then it tells how He and his messengers did it: “And
they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their
testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice,
O heavens and you who dwell in them!” Christians are heaven dwellers, seated
with Christ in heavenly places. Unbelievers are earth dwellers. “But woe to
you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath,
because he knows that his time is short” (Revelation 12:7-12 ESV)! Time is on our side. Satan is always in a
hurry.
Gog And Magog
“Satan will be
released [after 1000 years] from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners
of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is
as the sand of the sea.” Gog and Magog are the nations in the four corners of the earth.
They are the nations that rage and imagine a vain thing. They are the nations
that have opposed God’s for ages.
The
literalists have suggested umpteen guesses: The Ten lost tribes, Eurasian nomads, Russia. The Book of Enoch says God would send the Medes and Parthians (instead of Gog and Magog) to attack
Jerusalem, and be destroyed. Revelation 20:8 tells us: Gog and Magog,
are "the nations in the four
corners of the Earth."
The Bottomless Pit
The
abyss is not the lake of fire. No one escapes that. I agree with St. Augustine
on this. The abyss is in the heart of Gog and Magog. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The
rod of correction will drive it far from him” (Prov 22:15). The beast ascended
out of the bottomless pit in Revelation 13. But in chapter 17 the beast
ascended from the sea. Therefore the abyss must be under the sea. Then the
angel tells us that the sea is the nations (Rev 17:15). So the abyss must be
the heart of the nations. Satan gets bound there for an undetermined period
that is equal to a day or a thousand years. He periodically is released from
the underground into the open although he was there all the time.
An example is how Christendom ruled Europe for a thousand
years until the church went corrupt. Satan was then released and used the
nations to come against the reformers to destroy them, but God rained down the
fire of His word and liberty emerged in the modern world as a result of the
Reformation.
Another
example could be how Christian values ruled in America until the hippies
belched out of the abyss with the new morality. Satanic values before that in
the fifties were underground, but now they are publically accepted. This new
culture will get more and more consistent with its underlying presupposition
until God rains down fire again. The more epistemologically consistent the
culture gets, the closer it is to destruction by the fire of God.
The First Resurrection
Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were
those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of
those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God,
and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its
mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with
Christ for a thousand years. [5] The rest of the dead did not come to life
until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.
[6] Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over
such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of
Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4-6 ESV)
As St.
Augustine pointed out, these are beheaded souls, not beheaded bodies. Because
of their testimony, they lost the headship of Adam. They made Christ their head
instead of the statism of the beast. They are seated with Christ as kings and
priests with power to judge right and wrong for a timeless period spiritually called
1000 years. This is the first resurrection.
The
first resurrection is the spiritual new birth. The second one is the body.
Jesus indicated two resurrections when He said, “the hour is coming [the 2nd
resurrection], and now is [the 1st resurrection], when the dead will
hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).
The
Lake Of Fire
and
the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur
where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and
night forever and ever. (Revelation 20:10 ESV)
This is the ultimate destination of the
devil and his angels. It represents total defeat and total destruction. Do I
believe in annihilation? No. They will be tormented day and night forever and
ever. The same is true for those whose names are not found in the Book of Life.
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