An Essay on
Hermeneutics
“For the minds of those who do
not believe have been blinded by the god of this world, that the light
of the
glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, might not reach them.”
(2Corinthians 4:4)
Because God has chosen to reveal His grace to us through the inspired words of Holy Writ, Satan is continually working to blind men to the truth, harden their hearts to God’s promise of forgiveness in Christ, and keep them from believing what the Bible plainly says. To this end, three great delusions are evident.
The first great delusion, is the egotistic dream of man’s own righteousness. This is the delusion that leads men to excuse, rationalize, and justify their sin. Throughout history, it has blinded billions of people to the truth of their sin, and their need for God’s grace. Moreover, this delusion has taken two forms.
Its first form can
be seen in the
stiff-necked unrepentance of
Its second form can be seen in the works-righteousness predominant in all of the non-Christian religions. Those under this delusion trust in their own efforts to make themselves righteous instead of trusting in Christ. And, if they do admit that they have sinned, they deceive themselves into thinking that either the works they do, or the things they suffer, will atone for those sins.
The second great delusion is the self-deception of those who use God’s grace as an excuse to sin, and those who deny the good news of God’s grace, hiding it from the lost, because they assume that it will be used as an excuse to sin.
The Bible makes it clear that Christ has freed us from the law so that we can be righteous. And, all who come to Christ knowing that there is nothing good in them, and that their own righteousness is as filthy rags in the sight of God, rejoice in the good news of God’s grace. That grace makes it possible for them to be godly parents, faithful spouses, honest employees, and law-abiding citizens without being condemned for their faults and shortcomings.
However, those who hear the gospel with an unrepentant heart — either feeling no sorrow or condemnation for their sins, or feeling that they are fairly righteous with few sins — are blind to what is being said. And, because they are blind to the truth, they assume that freedom from the law is freedom to sin. Because of that delusion, they either use the gospel as an excuse to sin, or deny that we are free from the law (Romans 7:4, 1John 2:4).
The third great delusion is the blindness that causes the imaginations of men to run wild when they read the words of Scripture, reading unscriptural ideas into the text and dreaming up all sort of silly interpretations, while being totally blind to what the words actually say. Those who are under this delusion do not think of the Bible as a clear book, but as a book full of mysterious statements that need to be explained. As a result, instead of teaching people what the Bible actually says, they are eager to teach them all of the ideas, explanations, and interpretations that they have either learned from others, or come up with on their own. Moreover, this delusion gets such a deep hold on man’s sinful mind, that I have explained to people why they need to be teaching what the Bible actually says, not man-made explanations, only to have them agree; while remaining totally oblivious to the fact that they are teaching man-made explanations.
Therefore, let me make it perfectly clear! If the Bible says, “In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day,” then, that is exactly what God wants us to believe and teach (Exodus 20:11). Those who try to get around that statement, by claiming that the “days” were really long periods, are like children playing a game of pretend (Luke 7:32). The Bible defines the word “day” (in Exodus 20:11) by telling us that each of those days had an evening and a morning, and only twenty-four hour days have an evening and a morning.
God wants
us to teach what He said, not what we think (2Peter
Those under this
delusion need to
wake up to the fact that, Christ condemned man-made explanations or
interpretations of Scripture as the traditions of men. And, He warned
His
disciples that such explanations make the Word of God “of none-effect”
(Matthew
15:6 and
One of the examples
He cited had
to do with the law that condemned children who cursed their parents.
The
purpose of that law was to convict the guilty of sin, and lead them to
repent
and seek God’s mercy (Romans
There are many today
who would
agree that the Pharisees were wrong, yet are blind to the fact that
they do the
same thing. For example: The Bible plainly tells us that Christ will raise up believers on the last day, and that both
the saved
and lost will be judged on that day (John
Another example is
the claim that
Christ was not actually the physical descendant of Abraham, David, and
Mary but
instead brought His physical body with Him from heaven. Here again,
that claim
is nothing more than a man-made myth. The Bible says nothing of the
sort! On
the contrary, the Bible plainly tells us that Christ was the “seed” of
Eve,
Abraham, David, and Mary (Genesis
A third example can be seen in the way those who advocate women preachers deal with the passages that exclude women from congregational leadership. Although the Bible plainly says, “I do not allow a woman to teach, or to have authority over a man, but to remain silent,” those who are not willing to accept what God says, make up explanations as to why 1Timothy 2:12 does not need to be followed. However, here again they are replacing God’s Word with man’s word, and making the Word of God of none-effect.
The Holy Spirit will
never lead
someone to go contrary to what His Word plainly says. That
fact alone, tells me that those who advocate women preachers are being
led by a
spirit of error, not by the Holy Spirit (1John 4:6, Isaiah
You should not be surprised to discover that the cults fabricate doctrines out of their own man-made explanations of difficult passages, and then explain away any statements of Scripture that contradict their ideas. That is way we would expect false prophets to “interpret” Scripture. However, when muddle-headed Christians do the same thing, they need to be ashamed of themselves.
CONCLUSION
The truth
that God wants us to teach is the truth that is plainly stated in His
Word,
“line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little”
(Isaiah
28:10, 2Corinthians
For
example: When an unbeliever reads the words, “Christ died for our sins
according to the scriptures,” he may wonder what on earth they mean
(1Corinthians 15:3). However, when the Holy Ghost opens someone’s eyes
to see
what those words mean, He does not give them an explanation. On the
contrary,
He simply leads them to believe what the words plainly say. It is
faith, not an
explanation, that makes one person rejoice in the words “Christ died
for our
sins,” while another thinks that they do not make any sense.
Furthermore, once
a person has come to faith in Christ, he will find that Scripture will
interpret itself. And, Scripture interprets the words, “Christ died for
our
sins,” by telling us that, “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses
us from
all sin,” and “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins,
according to the riches of his grace” (1John 1:7, Ephesians 1:7).
The
point I am trying to make is that the Doctrine God wants us to teach is
the
Doctrine clearly and explicitly stated in the text of Scripture, not
man-made
explanations of the text. As Dr. Francis Pieper put it, “We
human beings in our perverse desire to reach
false heights, like blind idiots, take no notice of the divine
simplicity of
the words of Christ. The first and
foremost duty of the exegete consists in holding the flighty spirit of
man to
the simple word of Scripture and, where he has departed from it, to
lead him
back to the simple word of Scripture. [Christian Dogmatics”, Vol. 1,
page 360]