The Indispensable Hermeneutical Ingredient

By Jason Strange 

2/28/2011

If all of sacred scripture is not about Jesus than I ask what is it about? If he is not the central message of the Bible than who or what is? Scripture makes it clear that he is the ‘Sine qua non’ (refers to an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient) the indispensable Hermeneutical ingredient of the Bible, things don’t taste right if Christ is dislodged from his Book. It actually becomes a recipe for disaster.  It’s as if the sun were dislodged from its center all the planets would fall from there magnetic fields from which they are held, so too, hermeneutics fail and fall unless Christ is burning at the center of the interpretation (thematically and exegetically) shining his light and warmth upon the text in his full effulgence (brightness, brilliancy, candor, dazzle, brilliance, illumination). 

                Jesus showed that there was an organic connection between Himself and our understanding of the scriptures. Jesus himself declared in Luke 24, john 5:39, that there was a direct correlation to Himself as the central message of Scripture and our comprehension of the parts to the whole.  He is revelatory glue of the text, and when Christ goes scripture becomes ‘papier-mâché- a book layered with stories one on top of the other.

The progressive nature of revelation was a gradual unfolding of the activity of God; it is God’s self-revelation and self-disclosure. It was organic in nature because all historic revelation is divinely bound together into one unit; the tentacles of the divine root streaming through history until the sonic-bloom of the Interpreter shows up on the world scene. He is the One who spoke the world in existence and comes to speak definitively once more.

It was as if a nuclear chain reaction had happened; small explosions in the timeline of revelation, one sparking the next, growing in power and magnitude; and now the times had reached their fulfillment, word giving birth to Word. Each dispensation building upon another, revelation history growing and expanding until the fullness of time had come and the full arrival of God had flowered. It’s as if the OT was so pregnant with Messianic hope and expectation that Christ had to be born. Now all the OT expectation was coming together. And just as the Shekinah had left 400 years later it shows up on a hill in Bethlehem and rests on a child. This child being the light of the world who comes to illuminate the darkness, he comes as the grand interpreter of all that was written. Man’s understanding of the sacred text was severely wounded by Israeli occupation and the true Israel, the new creation of a new humanity arrives to interpret and to put his world back in order.

(By Israeli occupation I mean seeing Jesus (not Israel) at the center of the hermeneutic, at the exegetical level within the OT. "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,^(BF) that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Luke 24.)

Interpreting the Unfolding Drama the Way Jesus Did

By Max Strange

2/3/2011

It is not a limiting theological notion to say that Jesus Christ is the authoritative core and central message of the entire Bible.  Because this so, all passages will be interpreted in relation to this central Figure Head who is God’s final Word, His ultimate Authority, and His definitive Interpreter, Jesus Christ. 

This is not a fanciful theory.  Jesus and His Apostles gave us our approach to read all of Scripture as related, in some way directly or indirectly, to Jesus Christ.  In Luke 24, the Emmaus Road hermeneutic is given to us by Jesus.  He tells us that the entire Old Testament, littered with a Messianic consciousness, is all about Him.  Furthermore, Jesus tells the Jewish leaders in John chapter 5 that the very first books of the Old Testament, the very foundation of their religion written by Moses, is a Christocentric ensemble.  Stephen’s defense in Acts 7 reveals the progressive nature of the Bible all unfolding to the Christ.  This is not mere speculation.  This is not an attempt to allegorize the Scriptures or disregard the immediate context.  The very essence of the Scriptures are Messianic and Christocentric.  Jesus is that crimson thread that weaves through the wide-ranging tapestry of the Scriptures.  He is not the silver lining around the cloud, but the Sun itself shining through the suspended billows.  He is not imposed where He is already located.  He is not superimposed on the pretty picture of the Old Testament.  He is already there being the Source and Substance of His own Word.  We find Christ where He is and assume it foolish to look for any other.  It is Jesus and His Gospel that shapes our whole outlook on the Scriptures.  We can actually go back and read the Gospel of Abraham, the Gospel of Isaac, the Gospel of Jacob, David, etc…because in some germ form, or in some Christo-embryonic way, Jesus and His Gospel is there.  In all the types, shadows, allusions, narratives, poetry, and music, He is there.  This does not mean Jesus will jump out of each line and paragraph.  What it does strongly imply that the Old Testament and New Testament are progressively connected by Jesus who is that life flowing through the entire root system of the Testaments.   Therefore, to interpret rightly is to see Jesus in the interpretation for He is the meaning of it.  To miss Jesus is to misinterpret. 

The character of the Bible is then a Christo-progressing revelation.  From the Old Testament to the New Testament God makes Himself public.  Like an unfolding map, a naturally developing organism, His Bible is a work covering the ages.  Its progress covers redemptive history and its chief object is the self-disclosure of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  As we read, we will find an internal expansion.  Each step down its path brings us to a richer and more comprehensive knowledge of God.  In sequence, God has seen it a happy thing to disclose Himself and perhaps for our best and safest interest. Imagine a poor soul, emerging from a dark cave of 50 years and being accustomed to dark things, would be seriously injured by a sudden flood of light. Graciously, God has given us beam after beam of His Divine light, enabling us to piece together His majesty, keeping us from harm.  It is then, over the long haul of history, we notice the growing truth of God’s radiance.  The light dawns at the beginning of the Story and reaches high noon with Jesus Christ, the Solid Object at which all shadows of the Old get arrested.  Each truth unfolds from the previous showing us that God never acts in isolation from His other deeds.  His acts and words are fused together throughout in an organic and naturally unfolding character.  God gives piece by piece the whole to the puzzle and as each piece is fit, the whole comes into greater clarity and thus making each piece have a greater significance in the accumulation.  If this is so, at the completion of the New Testament and the accomplished work of Christ, we will find ourselves going back through the Cross into the Old Testament.  We will be guided by the author’s of the New Testament into that which preceded to view God’s full disclosure of His Son Jesus Christ. 

In Conclusion, the Bible’s core message is Christ and so it is necessary that our interpretation involve Him.  The Bible also progressively unfolds.  Therefore, the Bible is a progressive unfolding of Jesus Christ.