A More Christlike Word

I do not think now as I did half a lifetime ago when I started seminary. I had better not. Nor do I think that my current thoughts are now free from the need for future refinement, change, or abandonment.

“It is Christ himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to him.”1 —C. S. Lewis

The Word of God is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. And when he was about eighteen years old, he grew a beard.

He taught me the difference between reading the Bible as a flat text (where every word has equal authority), progressive revelation (where all the words accumulate in a crescendo of consistent truth), and the Christocentric view (where Christ is the pinnacle of revelation and every word must finally submit to him).

Peter opened my eyes to the stubborn fact that not every word of Scripture aligns with the living Word of God. It’s so plain in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard it said, but I say to you….” That’s not merely a progression—it’s a correction. There, I said it out loud. Yes, Jesus corrected the Bible, including words in the Bible formally ascribed to God!

Jesus trumps the Bible when the Bible reflects our hearts rather than God’s.

When anything in the rest of the Bible disagrees with Jesus, listen to Jesus.

It was Christ’s opponents who demanded a sacrifice, while God the Father’s great love—not his wrath—was revealed in Christ on the cross.

One of the best articulations of this reality comes via Brian Zahnd, who recently said:   We see a world formed in violence reaching a hideous apex, and with great violence, the world sinned its sin into the body of Jesus Christ. The wounds on Christ’s body—on his hands, his feet, his side—these are entry wounds as sins are violently injected into Jesus. What happens when sin enters the body of Jesus? Sin itself dies. Jesus goes down into death and leaves sin and death there, conquered and defeated. He’s raised on the third day; he comes back preaching the first word of the new world: “Peace be with you.” The cross is where Christ abolishes war and the myth of redemptive violence and calls us into a new world formed in peace.5

Abp. Lazar put a question to me straightforwardly: “You mean to tell me you believe God cannot freely forgive sin but must first appease his wrath through the violent child sacrifice of his firstborn son on the cross?” He knew the script as well as I did and was not about to pretty it up.

What Vladika made crystal clear is the truth that every conception of God has always been incomplete and imperfect. Only with the incarnation of Jesus Christ do we arrive at the final and perfect revelation of God—fulfilling, completing, cleansing, and/or correcting all previous revelations.

That is to say, what the Bible calls “God’s wrath” is a metaphor for the self-induced consequences or intrinsic judgment of our own turning from Perfect Love, even though these same “judgments” may become the occasion for God’s redemptive acts.

These two points comprise a central key for interpreting Scripture: How does any given passage point to Christ? How does any given passage form Christlike people?

“We have no idea what was in Isaiah’s mind while he was writing. But we do know for a fact that no one was reading Isaiah as speaking about a crucified Messiah born of a virgin until after the event.”

In fact, the first Christians would not have asked whether the Bible was authoritative. Instead, they would have said that Jesus was their authority, and then they would have asked, “Which books testify to this?” Those that did were chosen for inclusion in their written canon, which I discuss in more detail in the next section.

The technical term for this is the “tropological” sense of Scripture. That’s a fancy word that asks, “When you read the Bible, do you allow its message (Jesus) to transform your will?” If you do, then you’ll experience its inspiration firsthand. You’ll sense the Spirit breathing life into you and changing you from the inside as you reciprocate in obedience to the voice of Christ.

As I read any given text through Christ, I need to consider whether the author’s perspective reveals a veil that Christ has since removed or an unveiling that foreshadows his revelation of God.

Philo reasons that if Yahweh is truly God—the ultimate Good—then brutal descriptions of Yahweh must be anthropomorphic projections, that is, attributing human attributes and actions to God. We must, therefore, read those passages allegorically, because to read them literally would be unworthy of God.5

Where God is portrayed as good, Philo instructs us to read that as a revelation of the good God. Where God is not portrayed as good, he instructs us to read allegorically, because we must never allow a literalist interpretation to negate our understanding of God’s goodness.

Here’s the good news! You don’t need to know Greek or Hebrew, and you don’t need to figure out which translation is most accurate. What you most need to know is the gospel! The gospel of Jesus Christ is the best way to judge any given translation of any given verse. When you compare translations side by side, the question is NOT necessarily which one best represents the first manuscripts, but which one best represents the gospel.

eisegesis is defined as “the process of interpreting a text in such a way as to introduce one’s own presuppositions, agendas, or biases. It is commonly referred to as reading into the text.”6

We all wear the interpretive lenses of our family of origin, our educational system and training, our race and gender, our national culture or regional subculture, our religious heritage, and our personal temperament and history, including our wounds. These factors color everything we read—perhaps the Bible most of all. And while that presents a challenge, it’s not really a “bad thing” as long as you are mindful of it. Typically, the critics of eisegesis are modernists who deceive themselves with their imaginary objectivity.

How does a Christ-follower interpret “Moses, the Prophets, and all the Scriptures”? By asking how they prefigure Christ and his gospel.

Which psalms include these hints? In Protestant Bibles, you’ll see the phrase in Psalms 4–6, 8–9, 11–14, 18–22, 31, 36, 39–42, 44–47, 49, 51–62, 64–70, 75–77, 80–81, 84–85, 88, 109, and 139–140. That’s a lot of hints for disciples on the Emmaus Way! “You looking for Christ? Right this way, folks!”

Jesus is constantly running into people who are tripping on literalism and, at the same time, John is arguing for the flesh-and-blood reality of Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, even as John roots his story in historical events, he constantly allegorizes the story to unveil the life of Christ as an embodied revelation of eternal truth. John sees the life of Christ as factual and mythical—or, as C. S. Lewis puts it, “true myth.”

Christ on the road to Emmaus boldly tell us that he is prefigured throughout the Law, the Prophets, and everywhere in the Scriptures, and that is how we should read them. So, as we read Old Testament narrative, we are invited to watch and see: When the people of God experience suffering, Christ suffers with them. When God’s people cause suffering, Christ suffers in their victims. When the people of God achieve victory, Christ is the victor. When God delivers his people, Christ is the deliverer. When the people go into exile, Christ goes with them. When the people of God are led out of exile, Christ leads them. When the priest offered a sacrifice, Christ was the priest. When the lamb was sacrificed, Christ was the lamb. When God appeared, that was Christ. In other words, Christ was always there among them. His

Reading this way is truly legitimate and even quite easy when gathered into three broad categories: Every Old Testament trial (however disastrous and prolonged) prefigures Christ’s ultimate, brutal suffering and death on behalf of those who suffered the trial—and on behalf of everyone. Every Old Testament injustice (by the people, the kings, or the priests) prefigures humanity’s ultimate and more wicked betrayal of Christ through Judas, the Sanhedrin, Herod’s palace, and Pilate’s empire. Every Old Testament victory (however dubious in its xenophobic violence) prefigures Christ’s ultimate and more beautiful victory over darkness, dread, and death.

As an exercise, why not think of a story or symbol from the Old Testament and ask yourself which of these three categories it falls into: Is it a trial? An injustice? A victory? How does this story prefigure Christ? What aspect of the gospel does it signify? How does reading this story as gospel (the spiritual sense) address and transform my life (the moral sense)?

God is Good, and all he does is goodness. God is Light, and in God is no darkness at all. When a passage describes un-Christlike images of God, we must not read them literalistically, because attributing moral darkness to God’s nature or deeds is not worthy of God.

Here’s the progression: Vengeance: 70 x 7 (Lamech) Law: 1 x 1 = eye for an eye (Moses) Grace: 70 x 7 = forgiveness (Christ)

But if we don’t toss these stories aside, how do we read them? And how could Jesus say the following?!   In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matt 7:12 NASB)   Or…   36“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37And He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the great and foremost commandment. 39The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 22:36–40 NASB)

First, the whole Bible is true as it tells one ongoing faith story of the people of God through this polyphony of voices. Second, the whole of Scripture is true because it faithfully contrasts two revelations. Namely, the Bible reveals: The fallen state of humanity and its broken images of God Humanity restored in Jesus, who incarnates the true image of God

Once again, the cross does not reveal the violence of God against sin, but rather reveals both the violence of the human condition and the love of God toward sinners. In fact, the cross of Christ does not change anything about God or God’s orientation toward the world; it reveals the gracious heart of the Father who has always been, is now, and will always be perfectly revealed in Jesus.

The compositor of 1 Samuel writes as if the narrator is all-knowing (which he isn’t), but because this book is in the Bible, we mistake the narrator for God himself.

God deals with sin through correction, not punishment. That’s Clement, that’s Hebrews, that’s Hosea. The chastisements of God are disciplinary—not because divine justice demands satisfaction, payback, or wrath, but because a patient God is raising beloved children who tend to learn the hard way.

So, at times, the authors of the Bible are revealing this truth: the Holy Trinity of Love never changes. At other times, the authors are speaking phenomenologically; that is, they describe how God appears to be acting from the human point of view. Some people say it like this: “Objectively speaking, God never changes. Subjectively speaking, God appears to change.”

we have the notion of God’s immutable love. God cannot become angry or resentful because God is eternal, unchanging Love by nature. Any depictions of God as angry must therefore be read metaphorically—as anthropomorphisms.

True justice for the prophets is the beautiful restoration of the shalomic state by means of mercy—defined as every manifestation of divine goodness. In that case, justice and mercy kiss.15 Mercy is the method and means of justice. And these together are demonstrations of the Good, which is to say, of God.