The Old Testament as Interpreted by the New [3]
No one requires to be told that this subject opens up some great difficulties for us. The science of hermeneutics is perhaps one of the thorniest, yet one of the most basic, areas of “practical” Christian Theology and will, no doubt, grow more important in our present theological climate.[4]
One of the most basic of interpretations which would be accepted by most people is that the Old Testament must (at least to some degree) be interpreted by the New. This is perhaps only too obvious, but still important to state. Indeed, it is following the legitimate and necessary principle of interpreting Scripture by Scripture. It is also in harmony with the general (and frequently misunderstood) principle that God’s revelation, whilst not in any way contradictory, is nevertheless progressive. Saint Augustine’s often quoted dictum that “The New Testament is latent in the Old; the Old is patent in the New” is both valid and theologically sound. The outcome is that since now, by the grace of God, we live under the New Covenant, we cannot occupy the standpoint of the Old. To put this in another way, I suggest that every sermon based on an Old Testament text or passage must always be, in fact, a New Testament sermon.
We are all well aware of the general perception of many people that the Old Testament is full of law and wrath and the New Testament full of grace, love and good example. Of course, such a superficial view discloses a woeful ignorance of the Bible. However, let us not be too quick to congratulate ourselves as we are liable to fall into one of two traps in our interpretation.
· We may indulge in a kind of Old versus New Testament “one-upmanship” and plump for the Old Testament as against the New as if we were entitled to choose between the two. Of course, the Old Testament is full of wonderful accounts of God’s grace and is a real quarry for exegetical preachers.
· We may get so tied up with the fact that the New Testament has given us the light that we may form the idea that the Old Testament can be discarded as so much “Jewish old clothes”. If we go for this option, we actually discard a considerable part of the Scriptures.
I suggest that the key to this difficulty lies (as it should in the science of biblical hermeneutics) within the pages of Scripture itself. We must look at how the New Testament actually deals with the Old Testament before jumping to too many conclusions. Probably the first thing we should notice is that much use is made of the Old Testament both in direct quotation and in direct or indirect reference. For example, there are over six hundred direct Old Testament quotations alone.
Next, I suggest that that we should remind ourselves that although the Old Testament is the Jewish Scripture, under the New Covenant we read it as a post-messianic book. It is not intended to be disrespectful to Jewish people to say that we Christians regard the Old Testament as a book that does unequivocally point to Jesus Christ.[5]
So far, this all seems very simple but, of course, there are many potential problems. There are some quotations which seem almost too good to be true and some might even suggest that they are somewhat strained. For example, Matthew 1: 23 quotes Isaiah 7: 14 – Behold a virgin [6] shall conceive and shall bear a son and his name shall be called Emmanuel which is applied directly to Jesus. Or take Matthew 2: 6 quoting the prophet Micah 5: 2 where the town of Bethlehem is quoted as destined to be the birthplace of the messiah – and Matthew seems to quote the Old Testament passage somewhat differently from its original. Again, Matthew 2: 15 quotes Hosea 11: 1 Out of Egypt have I called my son applying this to the return of Joseph, Mary and Jesus from Egypt after the death of Herod whereas, in the Old Testament context itself, originally it referred to the Exodus experience.
These few examples may help to highlight the difficulties. What, for example, do we make of the Out of Egypt have I called my son quotation? How does it stand up to the so-called scientific exegesis of the form-critics? Do we even think of taking the view of Rudolph Bultmann [7] that this is no more than reading New Testament doctrine into the Old? Bultmann’s view is that the New Testament writers were, no doubt, well intentioned in what they did, but were quite mistaken, being motivated by apologetic or even polemic interests. It is, of course, well known that Bultmann sees little or no value in Old Testament interpretation because, for him, the Old Testament is merely a pre-Christian book. Also, Bultmann does not believe in the pre-existence of Christ or in the cosmic effects of his death and resurrection.
There is no doubt that we are dealing with a difficult area and so we must be careful at which end of the argument we begin. We will not get very far if we think that by some process of deductive logic we can either prove or disprove the authenticity or value of the Old Testament. Rather, we must begin with the question of authority and work our way back from there, apologetically.
The authority of scripture for which it ought to be believed and obeyed dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof and therefore is to be received, because it is the word of God. [8]
In other words, the starting point is with a principle of authority and not with some kind of radical distinction between Old and New Testaments. But the problems still remain; we may agree that we must preach from the Old Testament and that without it the New Testament is incomplete (and vice versa). The crucial question that we still come back to is whether or not we follow the interpretive tradition of the Old Testament that we find in the New?
Now let us be clear: if we do not follow in that tradition, by implication we seem to be suggesting that the New Testament writers were mistaken or that somehow they twisted the evidence (possibly out of the best possible motives) to suit their own presuppositions.
Whilst this kind of approach may sometimes be heralded as brave, radical or far sighted, it is actually an easy way out which, at the same time, creates more difficulties than it solves.
Most of the scholars agree that the main Old Testament quotations in the New fall into three main categories
1. Messianic prophecies
2. General non-messianic statements made in the Old Testament and are applied to Jesus Christ in the New
3. Typological passages
In the case of category number 1, there are relatively few difficulties. Some passages are messianic and obviously so. Others are also messianic but perhaps less clearly so. It would seem (to me) to be pointless to go behind the New Testament and try to delve into what might have been the pre-Christian Old Testament interpretation of the messianic hope on the assumption that this interpretation must be preferred. We live under the New Covenant, so why go back to the Old?
The New Testament writers believed – as do we – that Jesus of Nazareth was the Lord’s Christ and Messiah. The New Testament passages concerning the Lord’s Servant are many and clear.[9] Other Old Testament themes taken up in the New include the important New Covenant (Hebrews 8: 8-12, Jeremiah 31) and Bethlehem as the place of the messiah’s birth (Matthew 2: 6, Micah 5: 2). Matthew 11: 10 applies the passage in Malachi 3: 1 that speaks of the messenger who comes before the Messiah as being fulfilled in the person of John the Baptist. Yet again, Matthew 21: 5 speaks of the humble king of Zechariah 9: 9. In these passages, there are few real difficulties, if one accepts that, indeed, Jesus was the Messiah. God had not fully revealed himself in the Old Testament but with the coming of Christ, all things were transformed.
Category 2 is much less straightforward and some scholars would suggest that the New Testament interpretation is arbitrary. Let us look at an example that we have already mentioned – Matthew 2: 15, speaking of the holy family’s safe return after the death of Herod, applies Hosea 11: 1 ...out of Egypt have I called my son, which refers to the Exodus, to Jesus. Is that just a case of the Gospel writer simply getting carried away and shifting the evidence to suit the conclusion? A possible answer to this lies in the concept of personality. Christ was (and is) a man but he is also a representative man. Indeed, that is a very important aspect of our understanding of the incarnation. Jesus Christ is himself in his own right yet he is also the personification and representative of the people of God before God.
The very personality of Jesus was accommodated for some years to our finite world which, being tainted with the sin of fallen mankind is passing away. The true fullness of this personality lies outside our finite human concepts of space and time. As Saint Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 10, the spiritual rock that followed the children of Israel in the wilderness was Christ.
Once we can grasp this nettle quite firmly, we see that the problem is not so great after all. Jesus Christ was the servant of the Lord as an individual yet, by his being such, he was also the representative of God’s people. Take this a stage further and we see that the spirit-filled ecclesia is the Body of Christ in a very real sense. This is more than mere figurative speaking, for the true church (which is not always the same as the visible church) and the people of God are called to be a continuation and a pledge of Christ’s personality here on earth (again within our finite concept of space and time) until he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead.
As such, the people of God who make up the true living church of Jesus Christ are called upon to suffer as he did, to take up the Cross daily and bear in their own bodies – both individually and corporately – the marks of his passion and rejection. Thus, to look at it from the other side, what is true of Israel as the elect people of God is surely also true of the Saviour Messiah. The only authority the New Testament writers would have for their interpretation must have been Christ himself.[10]
It is surely quite absurd to say that this kind of interpretation was the invention of Paul and the early church, including the disciples. Could the early church have set out on what could only be described as a gigantic confidence trick? Could they have squeezed in the many fulfilments of Old Testament Scripture in the passion and death of Christ by pure invention or literary dexterity? Is it not rather that ...the Scripture cannot be broken (John 10: 35)?
In category 3, we come to (what is for me) one of the most fascinating areas of Old Testament interpretation, namely typology.[11] Put at its simplest, it is the interpretation of certain people, places, items and events in the Old Testament as types or prefigurative symbols of the New Testament. This is a method of interpretation that should and indeed must be employed, where appropriate.
I am bold enough to say must because typology is used in Scripture itself. Of course, there are possible pitfalls and it is a tool that must be handled with care. In the wrong hands, typology can be a dangerous weapon, leading us into many flights of fancy.
There must be much more than a vague similarity between the “type” and the “antitype”; it must either be obvious or at least clear by reasonable implication. And, of course, opinions will vary, as they do on most areas of theology. Some will see profound symbolism in the description of the furnishings of the tabernacle or the robes of the high priest. Others will be dismissive of such an interpretation.
So, to know what is clear by reasonable expectation is not always easy. Interpretation of a text or passage doe not give us a free ticket to read anything we like into it, to state the painfully obvious. For example, it is clear that the Genesis flood is a type of Christian baptism [12] even if there are minor difficulties in matching the two exactly. In both cases, people are saved by the grace of God.
Again, the exodus experience can reasonably be taken as a type of the new exodus of the people of God in Christ of which Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10. This same new exodus was foretold in Isaiah and other prophetic writings. The clearest example of all is the (Old Testament) law which is seen as a type of Christ.
Alan Richardson [13] gives a helpful and basic interpretation of Jesus as the fulfilment of the Old Testament: Jesus is baptised in the Jordan as Israel had been in the Red Sea (1 Corinthians 10: 2); he sojourns in the wilderness forty days, being tempted, as Israel was tempted (or tempted God) forty years long; on a mountain he calls a New Israel, appoints the Twelve (Mark 3: 13-19) and gives a new Law (Matthew 5 - 7; Luke 6: 12-49); on a mountain he stands transfigured with Moses and Elijah, who each had in old time encountered God on Horeb; he gives the signs of the bread from heaven, as Moses and Elijah had once done. Finally he goes up to take his Kingdom, passing as the old Joshua [14] had done through Jericho; and before he departs, he ratifies a new covenant in his blood and institutes a new Passover which his disciples shall keep until his return in glory.
But, of course, there are many potential problems of interpretation where the points at issue are not so clear. Take, for example, the sacrifice of Isaac. Is Isaac a type of Christ? It is tempting immediately to answer in the affirmative, but there are some difficulties involved. Isaac, after all, was not actually sacrificed. It was the ram that was substituted and Isaac was spared. So, it could possibly be said that, in this context, Isaac was definitely not a type of Christ – and even to suggest that the ram was! On the other hand, Abraham did receive Isaac back, even although he had given him up, in his own mind, for dead (Hebrews 11: 19). Could we then say that this receiving back was, in itself a type of the resurrection and that, in a real sense, Isaac is a type of Christ?
Beware of being too dogmatic! I say that to myself as much as to anyone else. We all crave for certainty but even with an open Bible and an open mind, we cannot always be certain about everything. It is possible that the reference is typological. However, a safer view might be that it is illustrative, it shows by a kind of metaphor or analogy and, as its meaning is perfectly clear, it does not need to be pulled apart.
Saint Augustine famously perceived the wood on which the ram was placed as a prefigurement of the Cross of Calvary. Opinion will differ as to whether or not this, in turn is typological. Possibly the better view is that the wood is a symbol, just as the bread and wine of Melchizedek has probably more of a symbolic connection with the bread and wine of the New Covenant than a typological one.
That is not to downplay either of these examples. Symbols can be – and are – very potent and can convey more meaning than a thousand words. The Cross itself is an extremely powerful symbol of sacrifice, death, forgiveness and resurrection (among other factors). At the other end of the scale, the Nazi Swastika is another potent cross symbol. The fact that something is symbolic does not for a moment cut it off from reality, historical or experienced. Indeed, you could even argue that parables are a kind of mental symbolism.
In any event, both typology and symbolism take full account of the value of history. This is almost the opposite of allegory (which does appear in Scripture as well). Allegory seeks to iron out historical space time happenings and events in a search for “deeper” meanings.[15] It is generally accepted rule of thumb that the parables of Jesus basically contain one main message, whereas an allegory can contain many.
I suggest that it is really only open to us to interpret Scripture allegorically in cases where it is clear beyond reasonable doubt that this is what is intended, although there are traditions that can be found at various stages of church history when parables have been interpreted allegorically by theologians whom we would consider “respectable”.[16]
There seems to be at least
a trace of allegory in the parables of the Marriage Feast [17]
and the Ten Virgins.[18]
There is clearer allegory in the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen.