As we study Hebrews together, we’ll find the author—like some other NT authors—using the OT Scriptures in surprising ways. For example, in Hebrews 2:13 the author quotes Isaiah 8:17-18, as if the words in Isaiah were spoken by Jesus. However, in the original context it seems clear that Isaiah himself is the speaker. Most of us, if reading Isaiah, would never interpret it the way the author of Hebrews did, and we may regard this as quite puzzling, if not troubling.
This article is NOT about discovering how the author arrives at these kinds of interpretations. Lord willing, we’ll do that as we work our way through the book in the sermon series. In this article, I’d like to consider another pertinent question: were the NT authors right to read/interpret the OT the way they did, and if so, should we follow their example?
There are three possible answers to this question. First, the NT authors were wrong. Second, the NT authors were right to read the OT this way, but for various reasons we should not follow their example. Third, the NT authors were right, and we should follow their example.
The first option — that the NT authors were wrong (they were using/reading/interpreting the OT inappropriately) — assumes a Bible riddled with errors. It’s a major problem for those who hold that the Bible is God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16) and perfectly true (Pro 30:5; John 17:17). We’ve written and discussed inerrancy extensively "at many times and in many ways." I won’t rehash it here. Suffice to say we have solid ground on which to dismiss this option.
The second option — that the NT authors were right to read the OT as they did, but that for various reasons we should not follow their example — is a popular position among evangelicals. Some would argue that Jesus and the NT authors were able to read and apply the OT Scriptures correctly because their interpretations were inspired. Ours are not. Therefore, we should not hope to read and apply the Scriptures with the same Holy Spirit-guided accuracy.
A few questions are in order regarding this view. First, since on this view we should not follow the many examples of interpretation contained in the Bible itself—both OT authors interpreting earlier OT Scriptures and NT authors interpreting OT Scriptures—then whose example should we follow? If God has not intended for us to learn from the Bible how to interpret the Bible, how does He intend for us to learn? Is right interpretation simply a matter of common sense or general revelation? To answer affirmatively, it seems, is to say that our common sense or general revelation is a safer approach than the approach contained in the special revelation of Scripture.
Second, since the biblical authors’ interpretation of earlier biblical authors is itself divine revelation, on what basis should we reject that revelation as normative? Do Jesus or any of the NT authors caution us in any way against reading the Scriptures as they do? If the NT hermeneutic (principles of interpretation) was a dangerous approach for anyone other than Jesus and the apostles, we might expect Jesus to preface His words to the Pharisees in Matthew 12 with something like, “Look, I don’t blame y’all for swinging and missing in your reading of 1 Samuel 21 since only I can understand the Scriptures correctly. And by the way, don’t try this at home…” However, that’s not at all what He did. Rather, He chided them, asking, “Have you not read…?” (Matt 12:3, 5). By that He meant, “Don’t you correctly understand the Scriptures?”
To my knowledge there is no disclaimer in the NT warning its readers to avoid interpreting it the way Jesus and the NT authors did. And this is why I would argue for…
The third option. The NT authors read and interpreted the OT in contextually appropriate ways, and we should follow their example. There are at least a couple of reasons to hold this position. First, again, it seems Jesus Himself expected this. Beyond the above example and others like it (Matt 19:4; Mark 12:26), on the road to Emmaus, Jesus said to the two disciples, “‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:25–27). A couple of points should be noted. First, that they missed the things pertaining to Jesus in the OT qualified them as “foolish ones.” In other words, they should have already seen what Jesus later showed them. How could this not be an endorsement of Jesus’ own hermeneutic? Second, these two disciples were not NT authors. That is, Jesus expected average believers—not just those writing Holy Spirit-inspired Scripture— to understand the OT as He did.
A second reason to read the OT as did the NT authors is that their arguments assume shared interpretative principles. This is precisely why they expected their arguments to be persuasive. Consider Paul’s encounter with the Bereans in Acts 17. Upon Paul and Silas teaching in the synagogue at Berea, Luke offers this insight: “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed…” (Acts 17:11–12).
The Bereans were just devout Jews. They had no inclination to believe anything from Paul merely on the basis of his apostleship or claimed superior ability to interpret the word. If they would be persuaded to follow Christ, they would have to be persuaded by their own Jewish Scriptures, interpreted in ways faithful to the context. Any interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures that required a presupposition that Jesus was the Christ would have been rejected by them out of hand. They were confident in their understanding of their Scriptures, which was why they were willing to hear what Paul had to say. Further, they were faithful to the meaning and context of those Scriptures, which was why they examined “the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
And what was Paul teaching them? It's a virtual certainty he was teaching what he taught in Thessalonica: “…he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ’” (Acts 17:2–3). That is, Paul was doing what he always did: teaching the OT Scriptures the way Jesus and the other NT authors did (including the author of Hebrews!).
That the Bereans believed in Christ should tell us at least two things. First, Paul’s hermeneutic was one the Bereans shared. That is, they could see that Paul did not read Jesus into the OT Scriptures, but out of the OT Scriptures. Second, his argument was persuasive. It didn’t require them to check their brains at the door, accept what Paul said simply because he had seen Jesus, or embrace a radically new way of interpreting the Bible. No, upon examining the Scriptures they saw that what Paul said was true, and they believed.
Consider also the argumentation in the book of Hebrews. We learned Sunday that the recipients were in varying degrees of shrinking back from faithful discipleship. If the author of Hebrews had put in front of them interpretations of their Scriptures that were not contextually-faithful, interpretations that required a presupposition that Jesus was the Christ, the author would have been handing them a gift-wrapped reason to abandon the faith, not persevere in the faith. They would have been able to say over and over, “Hey, that’s not what the original text means! You’re just bending the Scriptures to say what you want in order to prove Jesus, which actually shows Jesus isn’t the way. I’m out of here!”
On the contrary, the author was making arguments faithful to the OT text, the truth of which they couldn’t deny. By his use of their OT Scriptures, he left them without excuse to abandon the faith.
That the NT authors expected their audience/readers to be persuaded by their arguments assumes their interpretive principles were shared. It assumes those reading their letters and hearing their message could determine from the authors' use of the OT that Jesus really was the Christ.
Practically speaking, this indicates that the NT authors' interpretation isn’t some kind of voodoo that only they can do. If both pre-conversion Bereans and the doubting recipients of Hebrews could interpret the OT Scriptures sufficiently to weigh the arguments of the NT authors, we also can and should read the Bible the same way.
The fact that we don’t understand how they derived those interpretations, doesn’t mean that the NT authors were wrong nor that we could never interpret the same way. It more likely puts us in the category of those addressed in Hebrews 5—we are unskilled in the word. We simply don’t know the Bible as well as the author and recipients did. But take heart--the argument of Hebrews 5-6 indicates that our being unskilled in the Scriptures can be corrected. Lord willing, it will be.
Again, this article was not intended to begin that process of actually reading the OT like the NT. Our study of Hebrews will help us on that issue. However, if you’d like a head start, I can recommend a few resources.
First, is Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament by Greg Beale. This is a straightforward book on the interpretive principles used by the NT authors along with careful ways to apply them.
Two other resources are geared toward providing the kind of whole-Bible contextual knowledge that will make such interpretation more intuitive. The first is What is Biblical Theology? by Jim Hamilton. This is a great, lay-level book about understanding and embracing the interpretive perspective of the biblical authors. The second resource is God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants: A Concise Biblical Theology by Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum. (“Concise” may seem like a cruel lie when you receive the 300+ page book, but compared to the unabridged version, it’s a dainty afternoon read.) It would be an investment of time that will pay dividends.
In the meantime, as we approach Hebrews, let’s embrace the interpretive perspective of the author as one not unique to him, but one that we should adopt as we read the Bible.
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