Interpreting Scripture

With regard to the biblical understanding of what the death and passion of Christ were about, while interpreting the Scriptural data is a necessity, it is how it is interpreted by some theologians that causes the difficulties.

Some years ago, I came across a most enlightening section in one of New Testament scholar, Prof. J. Gresham Machen’s books (1881-1937), in which he seeks to set out the issue facing the Christian church in the 1930s, which he sees as the mis-interpretation of the biblical data to suit the purposes of a deviant agenda.  Machen writes:

Formerly when men had brought to their attention perfectly plain documents like the Apostles’ Creed or the Westminster Confession or the New Testament, they either adopted them or else denied them.  Now they no longer deny, but merely ‘interpret.’  Every generation, it is said, must interpret the Bible or the creed in its own way.  But I sometimes wonder just how far this business of interpretation will go.  I am, let me say, in a company of modern men.  They begin to test my intelligence.  And first they test me on the subject of mathematics.  ‘What does six times nine make?’  I am asked.  I breathe a sigh of relief; many questions might place me very low in the scale of intelligence, but that question I think I can answer.  I raise my hand hopefully.  ‘I know that one,’ I say.  ‘Six nines are fifty-four.’  But my complacency is short-lived.  My modern examiner puts on a grave look.  ‘Where have you been living?’ he says.  ‘ “Six nines are fifty-four” – that is the old answer to the question.’  In my ignorance I am somewhat surprised.  ‘Why,’ I say, ‘everybody knows that.  That stands in the multiplication table; do you not know the multiplication table?’  ‘Oh, yes,’ says my modern friend, ‘of course I accept the multiplication table.  But then I do not take a static view of the multiplication table; every generation must interpret the multiplication table in its own way.  And so of course I accept the proposition that six nines are fifty-four, but I interpret that to mean that six nines are one hundred and twenty-eight.’  And then the examination gets into the sphere of history.  The examiner asks me where the Declaration of Independence was adopted.  That one, also, I think I know.  ‘The Declaration of Independence,’ I say, ‘was adopted at Philadelphia.’  But again I meet with a swift rebuke.  ‘That is the old answer to the question,’ I am told.  ‘But,’ I say, ‘everyone knows that the Declaration of Independence was adopted at Philadelphia; that stands in all the history books; do you not accept what stands in the history books?’  ‘Oh, yes,’ says my modern friend, ‘we accept everything that stands in the history books – hundred per cent Americans we are.  But then, you see, we have to interpret the history books in our own way. And so of course we accept the proposition that the Declaration of Independence was adopted at Philadelphia, but we interpret that to mean that it was adopted at San Francisco.’  And then finally the examination turns (though still in the sphere of history) to the department of history that concerns the Christian religion.  ‘What do you think happened,’ I am asked, ‘after Jesus was laid in that tomb near Jerusalem about nineteen hundred years ago?’  To that question also I have a very definite answer.  ‘I will tell you what I think happened,’ I say; ‘He was laid in a tomb, and then the third day He arose again from the dead.’  At this point the surprise of my modern friend reaches its height.  The idea of a professor in a theological seminary actually believing that the body of a dead man really emerged from the grave!  ‘Everyone,’ he tells me, ‘has abandoned that answer to the question long ago.’  ‘But,’ I say, ‘my friend, this is very serious; that answer stands in the Apostles’ Creed as well as at the centre of the New Testament; do you not accept the Apostles’ Creed?’  ‘Oh, yes,’ says my modern friend, ‘of course I accept the Apostles’ Creed; do we not say it every Sunday in church? – or, if we do not say it, we sing it – of course I accept the Apostles’ Creed.  But then, do you not see, every generation has a right to interpret it in its own way.  And so now of course we accept the proposition that “the third day He arose again from the dead,” but we interpret that to mean, “The third day He did not rise again from the dead.”’

In view of this modern art of ‘interpretation,’ one may almost wonder whether the lofty human gift of speech has not become entirely useless.  If everything that I say can be ‘interpreted’ to mean its exact opposite, what is the use of saying anything at all?  I do not know when the great revival of religion will come.  But one thing is perfectly clear.  When it does come, the whole elaborate art if ‘interpretation’ will be brushed aside, and there will be a return, as there was at the reformation of the sixteenth century, to plain common sense and common honesty.

Source:  J. G. Machen, God Transcendent, (1949, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh), 45-47.

I considered this to be useful to post on my website, so that readers might have an opportunity to read and think about what Machen wrote all those years ago.  To him, this is the single most important issue facing the Christian church, and it still is today.  I trust you find it as helpful as I did.