The Science and Art of Biblical Interpretation - Working the Method Part 4: Types and Symbols

How the Old Testament is used in the New Testament gives us insight into how those in the first century observed, interpreted, and applied God’s Word. They did this by employing a consistent, literal method of interpretation and not by allegorizing the Scripture. No intended meaning of the Old is ever changed in the New.

An often-neglected area of study, a large portion of Scripture is prophecy. In addition to being a powerful polemic for the veracity of God’s Word, literally fulfilled prophecy validated the Messianic credentials of Jesus Christ at His first coming; and will do the same at His second.

Understanding why and how parables are used in Scripture, especially by Jesus, is a vital part of interpreting God’s Word. And the presence of allegories in the Bible does not give license to the student to interpret “allegorically”, the invalid method that transfers the authority from God’s Word to the mind of the human interpreter.

Though perhaps more challenging than some of the other “gaps” we need to overcome, the literal, historical, and grammatical method of interpretation will still yield God’s intended meaning for the student of His Word if faithfully and consistently applied.

The Bible is a rich and beautiful collection of various kinds of literature or “genre”. However, we still must consistently apply the literal method of interpretation to each to arrive at God’s intended meaning and application for our lives.

Now that we have the three tools of observation, interpretation, and application in our hermeneutics toolbox we can begin to apply them to the various aspects of God’s Word. Since God chose to communicate in languages a careful study of grammar will be the first step.

Once we see what the Scripture says, and understand what it means, our next task is to make application to our lives. Jesus prayed to His Father that His disciples would be sanctified in the truth (John 17:17) and we dare not short circuit the Spirits work by failing to apply what we know to be true.

Having seen what the Scripture says we must understand what it means by applying sound interpretive principles. Our model is the same one used by the prophets, the apostles, and by Jesus Himself.

The first step in understanding anything is to observe it. The Bible is a rich treasure house of truth and we must apply ourselves diligently to glean all that God has for us. We will never understand and apply what we do not see.

Historically the two competing interpretive systems were the allegorical and literal methods. The allegorical method won out and dominated for over a thousand years until the reformation. The Spirit of God then moved the reformers to recover sound doctrine through the recovery of sound, Biblical hermeneutics: the literal method.