THE DIFFICULTY OF THE PROPHETIC BOOKS
The tendency when reading the prophetic books of the Bible is to interpret them as future, global events that will happen at a specific time and affect everyone living at that time. Applying this thinking, some people believe that some prophecies have already been fulfilled and others think that they are yet to be fulfilled. This is a wrong way to interpret any prophecy. It leaves a gap in time between past and future which makes application of the prophecy to our here and now lives difficult.

Prophecies should be interpreted to apply to individuals at different times according to God’s plan for each person. This attitude creates room for any prophecy to be applied to each individual on a more or less daily basis. This attitude is the only one that creates anticipation for timely application of all scripture to personal righteousness. We should expect no less from God’s living word that is able to judge between the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

This happened prophetically when Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple. It happened spiritually through Jesus death and resurrection. It happened for real when God sent Rome to demolish the Temple during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Before that would happen, however, the existing Old/First Covenant religious system would need to be demolished. This happened prophetically when Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple. It happened spiritually through Jesus death and resurrection. It happened for real when God sent Rome to demolish the Temple during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

There is an important spiritual lesson in these events for individual disciples: The old must die before the new can be established. We find this principle in this scripture:

Jeremiah 1:10: See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

While this word was given to the prophet Jeremiah, it is also an exhortation to contemporary disciples that they too must pluck up, break down,  destroy and overthrow spiritual nations and kingdoms  (i.e. religious beliefs, practices and institutions) to which they have given authority to rule over their personal spiritual lives. This first the natural and then the spiritual principle is that religionists must destroy and overthrow (i.e. it must die) Old/First Covenant religion in their own lives  before the New Covenant (i.e. where the law is written on their hearts) can be built and planted in their hearts (i.e. new life). This principle found throughout the Bible is represented as the death,resurrection and new life process by which Old/First Covenant religionists choose to keep practicing religion or New Covenant life.

A unique example of this principle is found in the parable of the patched clothing and wineskins;

Matthew 9:16-17 and Mark 2:21-22: And no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wine skins; if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wine skins, and so both are preserved.”

COMMENTARY: Here unshrunk cloth and new wine symbolically refer to God’s spoken voice. The old garment and old wineskin symbolically refer to the human mind of Old/First Covenant religionists. A new garment and fresh wineskin symbolically refer to New Covenant disciples.

The parable teaches that God’s spoken word can only be heard by New Covenant disciples and cannot be received by Old/First Covenant religionists.

The human mind cannot understand God’s perfect will unless it is transformed from its human tendency (i.e. old nature) to interpret the Bible literally. This transformation is also called being born again, a process through which God opens the heart (i.e. eyes) of New Covenant disciples so that they stop trying to understand the literal Bible with their minds and instead listen to God’s living and active spoken word (i.e. voice) which is spoken to the heart.

The point of application for this study is that the ability to understand the deep symbolic meanings of scripture is possible only after rejection of the religious systems and doctrines that limit understanding to one literal interpretation. This is especially true for Biblical prophecy.

Because of the tendency to interpret the Bible literally, there is also a tendency to see prophecies as events that are out there in the future somewhere with little or no personal application for us as individuals today. This attitude disagrees with what God has said about the timely, personal application of all scripture for everyone.

It must be said, therefore, that anyone who aspires to be a New Covenant disciple must consider all prophecies as applicable to them in the present time. Since Judaism and Christianity insist on interpreting prophecies according to dispensations of time, it is imperative that New Covenant aspirants disengage from religious systems that do not teach personal application of prophecy of God speaking in real time to their hearts.

Continued submission to teaching that is contrary to what God wants people to hear and apply today, not in some future time, is idolatry — no matter how persuasive or reasonable the teaching might be. It is like this: Either you depend on God alone to teach you, or you depend on someone else to teach you. It is the “two masters” principle:

Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:12-13:  And  if  ye have   not  been   faithful  in  that which is another man’s, who shall give you  that which is your own? 13 No  servant  can serve two masters: for either he will hate  the one,  and  love the other; or else  he will hold to the one,  and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

COMMENTARY: Religious leaders find the basis of their teachings in the literal words of the Bible. Their credibility is based on their skill in reading, interpreting and reporting what the Bible says to them. The Bible, therefore, becomes  the master of the religion that they preach.

This seems reasonable and right until we recognize that what God ultimately wants is for each of people to listen to and obey his voice on their own without the assistance of human mediators whom God calls false prophets. Although people love to read their Bibles and listen to and read the teachings of religious leaders, these activities are not the same as listening to God’s spoken voice. In God’s view, people who listen to religious leaders practice idolatry.

Prophecies about the New Covenant are particular example of those which should be applied personally in real time. Christians tend to put all the emphasis of the New Covenant on forgiving iniquity and remembering sin no  more. While these are not unimportant features of the New Covenant, this emphasis also tends to ignore the rest of the prophecy about the law written on hearts, teaching and knowing God. In plain terms, God wants to teach his people himself.

When we read the Bible, its many inconsistencies and contradictions will lead us to wrong conclusions if we interpret them literally. This is what happens when we depend on written or spoken human words for understanding instead of listening to God’s voice. When we understand that we absolutely need to listen to God’s voice, we can understand why God says that

We will always err in our understanding of scripture if we use only our natural intellect and cultural understanding of words because it is impossible to represent spiritual truth with natural, human words. Because there is so much depth to God and how he works, understanding is impossible unless God’s spirit does the teaching.

In the above process, there is one gap in the process that we did not attempt to include because it is so complex — so spiritual. It is the  beginning of the process where conviction of sin and repentance occurs. This phase of spiritual growth is impossible to represent in detail because it is personal for each person. Nevertheless, there are several things that we can say about the process because God has outlined them in the Bible.The significance of this process in establishing the New Covenant in Jews and Christians is immense. With respect to Literal or Symbolic Interpretation, however, we must first make a few key points.

In Luke 8:9-18 and  Matthew 13:16-23, in response to his disciples’ inquiry, Jesus explains to his disciples the spiritual meaning of the parables.  The blessing to which Jesus refers in these scriptures is the blessing associated with being in a New Covenant relationship where the meaning of the law and the parables is written on their hearts. This is the common experience for all who are in a New Covenant relationship with God. Those who have the law written on their hearts effectively have the mind of Christ, which is a mind that is able to interpret the spiritual meanings of difficult scriptures. These hidden meanings are the secrets of the kingdom of God.

This “knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God” comes as a quiet revelation by the Spirit of God to the heart of a New Covenant believer who hears God’s voice. This revelation only came to the disciples after they asked Jesus about the meaning of the parable about the sower he had just told a large crowd. Many heard the story, but only the disciples asked Jesus to tell them the meaning. Everyone else in the crowd was satisfied with the obscure, even confusing, meanings of the parables, but the disciples were discerning enough to know that there was more to the story than the literal facts.

STUDY TIP: See this link for commentary on the parable of the sower.

They were curious about the true meaning, but they also had humility and courage to ask Jesus to explain the meaning to them. And Jesus satisfied their curiosity. As Jesus puts it, they had “ears to hear.” And when he said, “let them hear” he was affirming God’s guarantee that hidden spiritual truths would be revealed to those who ask.

A clear and critical lesson in this whole story is that we need to ask for the spiritual meaning. In the story, the disciples asked Jesus for insight. In these modern times we cannot go to the physical Jesus, but we can go to God with a prayer that humbly confesses that we do not understand the literal Bible. Sooner or later, God will provide  the answer. However, if we are satisfied with the literal meaning, that is all that we will get.

Since the ability to discern deep spiritual meanings is a function of having the law written on your heart (i.e. New Covenant), failure to obtain deep spiritual meanings is a clear indicator that you are still in an Old/First Covenant relationship with God. And if that is where you are, you don’t even know enough to ask for spiritual meanings. For you, there is nothing more to the Bible than the literal meaning. You may have read through the Bible many times, and you may know all the important stories by heart, and you may know some doctrines, and you may have memorized a lot of scripture, but if you don’t ask for and receive spiritual meanings of scripture, it is all intellectual exercise to gain intellectual knowledge. You are not pursuing spiritual life found in spiritual knowledge that comes from hearing God’s spoken word in your heart.

Jesus gave his disciples several stern warnings about how they (i.e. we) should seek for hidden secrets and apply what we learn. What he said is that what you think you have in terms of knowledge will be taken away from you if you continue to assume that there is no deeper meaning than the one that comes to you intellectually as you read or listen.

However, if you assume, as true New Covenant disciples will do, that there is a deeper meaning, Jesus will give you that deeper meaning. Since true disciples are learners, they will make the effort to ask for more information. And since God encourages disciples to ask for wisdom (i.e. knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God), he will be faithful to give it to those who bother to ask.

In the story where Jesus told a large crowd about the parable of the sower, it was only the disciples who came to Jesus afterwards to ask for the spiritual meaning. Others in the crowd were content to hear the literal story. Members of the larger crowd were content to hear and understand with their natural capabilities (eyes and ears). This was not true for the disciples. They knew that there was more to the story and they went out of their way to ask Jesus for the deeper spiritual meaning. Jesus’ disciples prove that they have spiritual ears to hear by asking for deeper spiritual understandings of God’s word.

This story reveals three key qualities of New Covenant disciples:

God has many unflattering ways of referring to people who do not listen to his voice (i.e. they interpret scripture only literally). Essentially, they have hard hearts. And if they have hard hearts, they are fake disciples — not true disciples. And if they are not true disciples who listen and understand with their hearts, they are not New Covenant believers because the seat of understanding of God’s ways for a New Covenant believer is in the heart.

A big part of the problem that those who do not listen to God’s voice is going along with the crowd. The crowd is trained (i.e. indoctrinated) to look only for the literal understanding. Most people are not even aware that hearing with their spiritual ears/hearts is a possibility or that God commands people to listen to his voice. They wrongly think that only trained religious leaders can hear from God, and so that is who they listen to. That is why the blind lead the blind.

Carrying these points further, it is logical and accurate to say that people who do not allow for symbolic interpretations are not really Christlike. This must be true because, if Jesus spoke in parables, he also understood the symbolic interpretation of those parables. Thus, a person who is truly Christ-like must also understand the symbolic interpretation of the parables and other difficult scriptures. Or, even if that person does not fully understand such scriptures, he/she must at least agree that such symbolic interpretations do exist and then seek diligently to study them until understanding comes.

By consistently choosing to acknowledge and accept only literal interpretations, people with dull, unbelieving hearts use only their natural, intellectual abilities to understand truth. But, no matter what their intellectual capabilities might be, intellect and reason are never enough to gain spiritual understanding. The spirit of a New Covenant disciple must be engaged with spiritual ears to hear God’s spoken voice.

Of course there must be some intellectual understanding, but those who begin and end with intellectual understanding effectively foreclose on deeper, spiritual understanding. Such people are focused on natural things of the world while God wants us to focus on the things of the Spirit that cannot be seen or touched with natural capabilities (i.e. eyes, ears and intellect). Those who interpret the Bible literally have a shadow of truth, but they do not get the full meaning.  The are spiritually immature.They are infants tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. And as infants, they miss out on the mysteries of God and the fullness of Christ.