103 - History of Interpretation [C]

Hebrews Lesson 103    October 4, 2007

^NKJ Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

I didn't realize I would be off on dispensationalism quite this long.  But we have been looking at key elements in dispensationalism and understanding the fact that there is this big shift that took place as a result of what happened on the cross and the ascension and the whole cross event (let's say) which takes in the crucifixion, the resurrection and the ascension.  It brings us to a point where Jesus Christ is in a unique place right now at the right hand of the Father.  We would say that He is in session.  He is not ruling.  He is seated at the right hand of the Father serving and operating as High Priest. That's an important thing to understand in relationship to a lot of the differences between dispensational understanding of Scripture and what you find in replacement theology and in covenant theology. 

But at the root of everything is this issue that drives so many things today - is hermeneutics or interpretation – how you understand the Bible.  How do you go about interpreting not just the Scripture, but anything?  Once you get into a relativized culture – that just doesn't apply to the United States or Western Civilizations today; but you had elements of relativistic thinking in the Old Testament in Judges. A lot of times in the period of the judges, especially in the Northern Kingdom, you had relativistic thinking that dominated Greek thought as well as Roman thought.  So as long as you have relativistic thinking (and you always have relativistic thinking whenever your ultimate reference point is within creation and), you don't have a creator that stands completely outside of creation.  So what happens even if you get a fuzzy idea of something out there that you can't really identify which is what some people will say Plato had and Aristotle had.  If you look at what they do, you look at how they have this thing they call the chain of being.  He is not out there.  The ultimate unmoved mover in Aristotle is not really out there. 

How in the world can you define "the what"?  (Now this is really going to fry some brain cells.)  How can you define what something is or that something is (excuse me) - how can you define that something is, if you don't know what it is - if you don't know the attributes and characteristics that qualify God as God as a creative God that's over against and distinct from all creation.  If you don't have any of the things that make up what He is, how do you know that He is?  I mean how do you know that He is an independent, infinite creator God if you don't know what He is?  The only place that you know what He is, is going to be starting from Scripture.  There is according to Romans 1 evidence from creation: but, it's not defined in terms of special revelation. It's just general revelation, but it's enough to hold man accountable.  But it's not enough very far in terms of specifics. 

So all through history we've had this relativistic culture.  In the last couple of weeks I've sort of gone through a history of interpretation how Greek thought gave rise to allegorical interpretation which is certainly relativistic, that what something means is determined by whoever reads is.  Allegory can mean – something can mean any number of different things to different people.  I kept coming back to the fact that in dispensationalism we believe in a consistent (there is you key word consistent), plain, literal interpretation. 

I threw this quote up there the last four or five lessons from David L. Cooper.  I've got to correct myself.  I got corrected. I was always told David L. Cooper was Arnold Fruchtenbaum's pastor; but he really wasn't.  He was a mentor though.  Arnold was mentored and pastored sort of by a missionary with the American Board of Missions to the Jews, a West Texas guy Beryl Haney.  Beryl Haney is the one who turned Arnold on to the writings of David L. Cooper.  David Cooper was not a Jew.  He was a gentile, but he was very much involved in Jewish evangelism.  He coined this definition of literal interpretation probably 60 years ago.  I never ran into this while I was in seminary; but I have run into it a lot since I've been in seminary.  People everywhere seem to use this and it is a very usable definition that:

Literal interpretation is when the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, make no other sense.  Therefore  take every word at its ordinary, usual, literal meaning, unless the facts of the immediate context studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths indicates clearly otherwise.

I want to point out something there at the end.  He says that the only thing that would mitigate against taking a passage literally is the immediate context studied in the light of related passages.  What's that?  That's the broader context.  If you are doing a study of John 3:16, you have to study it and understand it within the context of Jesus communication with Nicodemus there in John 3:1-15.  But you have to understand that within the context of the gospel of John.  And you understand that within the context of New Testament and that's within the context of the message of the Bible as a whole.  So you constantly have these concentric circles of context.  That's very, very important.  The old adage is that if you take the text out of its context you are left with a con.  That is so true.  That is what happens in too many things. 

As things would have it in the providential plan of God, we have an illustration of this r-i-p-p-e-d from the headlines of today's news.  So, we had every morning this week it seems like there is this news item related to a statement made by Rush Limbaugh on one of his morning comments, his morning update.  Now let me say a couple of things before we get into this.  First of all, it doesn't really matter what you think of Rush whether you agree with his views or you don't agree with his views, whether you like his personality or dislike his personality.  The issue here is merely an issue of understanding interpretation and hermeneutics.  You have to have a solid consistent, literal, hermeneutic to have stability in any culture.  This is a great example of why we have a lot of the problems that we have. I think it was early last week, Rush did a morning update.  He has these little 30 second blurbs that are played out on various radio shows that host his show.  They are played in the morning as teasers to grab your attention and then his show comes on in the afternoon.  This is a pretty simple straightforward little comment.  So I was able to put the whole thing up here so you can read it in its context. 

Now what everybody is all upset about is the liberal Democrats get up in Congress both in the Senate and the House and want to use the Senate to condemn Rush which is totally absurd in and of itself.  Why would you use Congress to want to condemn a talk show host?  Okay? 

So he had this morning comment and he talks about this one soldier whose name was Jesse MacBeth.  The big flap is all about the fact that he is being accused of calling any U. S. soldier who is against the war in Iraq a phony soldier.  Now we have to listen to what Rush says.  Okay? 

First of all I want you to pay attention to context.  So when he makes initial morning comment, this is what he said.

The antiwar left has its celebrities and one of them was "army ranger Jesse MacBeth".  Now, what made this 23 year old corporal a hero to the antiwar crowd was not his Purple Heart or his being afflicted with posttraumatic stress disorder from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.  No, what made army ranger Jesse Mac Beth a hero to the left was his courage in their view off the battlefield.  Without regard to consequences, he told the world the abuses he said he had witnessed in Iraq -  American soldiers killing unarmed civilians, hundreds of men, women and even children.  One gruesome account translated into Arabic and spread widely across the internet MacBeth described the horrors this way. 

"We would burn their bodies; hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque."

He goes on to say:

Recently Jesse MacBeth, the poster boy for the antiwar left, had his day in court.  He was sentenced to 5 months in jail and 3 years probation for falsifying a Department of Veteran's Affairs claim, his Army Discharge Record too.  Yes, Jesse MacBeth was in the army for 44 days before he was washed out of boot camp.  Macbeth is not an army ranger.  He is not a corporal.  He never won the Purple Heart.  He was never in combat to witness the horrors he claimed to have seen.  He never went to Iraq.  He never went to Afghanistan. 

Notice nowhere in this initial morning report do you hear the phrase "phony soldier".  Rush is simply commenting on the fact that this guy has become a darling of the antiwar left and they touted him and trotted him out and everything until it was revealed that the guy was a fraud and he was indeed phony. 

Now we have studied enough about hermeneutics and interpretation the last few weeks to see 3 important principles that relate to any kind of interpretation. 

1. First of all meaning is determined by the author, not the reader or the listener.  So that means that the meaning of what Rush said is not determined by who listens to it, it is determined by his intent.  It's called authorial intent. 
2. Second thing we have to remember is that anything must be understood in light of the times in which it was written or spoken.  That means context. 

So you have to recognize that there are three levels of context that anything has.  It's the immediate context, the surrounding paragraphs, statements, explanations.  That's part of the literary or oral context. 

The second level of context would be the broader context of the writer or the speaker.  Any of us could say things publicly where we misspeak.  I have misspoken at times where I have said one thing and I meant just the opposite. That can happen to anybody who is on radio, television who is speaking frequently. 

So you have to look and say, "Did he really mean that?" 

Well, look at the whole body of evidence and say, "Well, that would contradict everything that person has ever said so obviously they misspoke." 

So you have the broader context of the writer or speaker or maybe the writer (like we find in Scripture a lot of times) says something that conceivably could go this way or that way and you have to interpret it in light of the broader context and say, "Well he couldn't have meant X because if he meant X it would go against everything else he said.  So obviously he must have meant Y."

3. Then you have a culture or historical context.

Now let's look and analyze what Rush said.  Now what happened in terms of the context that day is later on his afternoon show somebody called in and talked to Rush and complained about how the liberal left was using a lot of phony soldiers like Jesse MacBeth.

They weren't men or women who had actually served in combat and been to Iraq or anywhere else but would just call up talk shows and say, "I am a vet and I am against the war in Iraq." 

So within that context, Rush then used the term which was first introduced by this guy who called into the show; he used the term phony soldier.  But the night before in a piece done (this is where you get into the broader historical context) on ABC News (and apparently several nights before this ABC, NBC, and CBS had all done stories on Jesse MacBeth) Charlie Gibson on ABC Evening News introduced the term "phony soldier". 

So just like when I exegete through Scripture and I say we have to look at where this term came from because it has an original context like the term Son of Man in Daniel 7.  Same thing - where did "phony soldier" come from?  It came from Charlie Gibson, but nobody is attacking Charlie Gibson.  Nobody is attacking anybody else on CBS or NBC.  So Rush picks up this term and in the broader context of let's Rush's life.  This man has unequivocally stood behind the American military for at least 15 years. 

I think Tommy Ice introduced me to Rush Limbaugh about 1990 when we were driving to a pastor's conference in Kansas City.  He had already been on the radio a couple of years before that with his current type format.  But this man has consistently stood behind the U, S, military.  He has never said anything derogatory about the military or our soldiers.  The only thing he said (and I happened to have listened to the segment that particular day on the way back from somewhere) - I heard him talking about this and never used the term phony soldier in relationship to anybody other than those who claimed to have been what in actuality were not.  He never used the term to refer to legitimate servicemen who served their time had gone to Iraq and came back and questioned perhaps what was going on.  But you also have to think in terms of another broader context.  Remember the liberals who are unhappy with this (and I am not using party names on purpose because it is not just – there are a lot of Republicans who are just as screwed up as a lot of Democrats.  It's a mindset.  It's a worldview. 

I saw on Fox and Friends yesterday morning - they interviewed a Democratic senator and a Republican senator. 

The Democratic senator said, "Well, I've read the whole transcript of everything Rush Limbaugh said he condemned all of the servicemen who are against the war."

The other guy said, "Well, I read everything and he didn't do that.  You didn't understand what he said."

Now see the issue is hermeneutics.  The issue is understanding.  The issue is how can these two men who claim to have read the transcript claim that it means opposite things.  Now a couple things we have to remember are that the liberals who have misinterpreted this are the same wonderful group of people who have brought you the whole concept of the Constitution being a living document that can be reinterpreted in every generation.  See it's a whole mindset of postmodernism in a relativistic thinking that shapes what they do.  They look at something and read it and they've got this filter, this relativistic filter there that between the paper and their brain black is turned to white and right is turned to wrong because of that worldview.  That's the power of presuppositions in a worldview. 

I remember a professor I had in seminary used to illustrate presuppositions this way.  You have a man that is totally convinced that he is dead.  This guy is almost on the verge or a psychotic break.  He is convinced that he is absolutely dead so he goes to a psychotherapist who works with him for 3 or 4 years to try to convince him that dead people don't bleed.  Finally this patient is convinced that dead people don't bleed.  The psychiatrist goes on for some time until he is absolutely convinced that this guy is firmly entrenched now in the idea that dead men don't bleed.  When he gets to that point, the guy comes in for his appointment.  He whips out a needle and pokes him in the arm and the patients starts to bleed. 

The guy looks down at his bleeding arm and goes, "How about that.  Dead men bleed after all." 

See presuppositions are often not taken out of the closet, the cellar of our minds, and examined.  We hold them to be so true and self-evident that we never take them out into the light of day to evaluate them.  So, when we read certain things we interpret them within our grid and in light of our presuppositions and we're not even aware or self conscious of the fact that it's exactly what we're doing. 

So when we look at these liberals who are accusing Rush of this, there are several things we should observe in hermeneutics.

First of all they have an agenda, a worldview that causes them to call wrong, right and right, wrong.  It is that relativistic human viewpoint worldview.  It's not a rational issue; it is that there is something else going on. 

Remember the unbeliever(the unbelieving atheist) can look at the most intricate design in creation and say, "Hum, that happened by chance."

He can never see that it has order and structure and therefore must have come from order and structure.  Why?  Because there is a spiritual agenda at work that he is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.  He knows in his heart of hearts that if he acknowledges that there is a creator that gave that order, then he has ultimately got to admit that he is a sinner.  That's why he is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.  He can't.  In arrogance he doesn't want to admit that he is a sinner and that he is wrong.  So there is this hidden agenda, this worldview at work. 

The second thing that happens (And see that happens when you are talking with covenant theologians or replacement theologians.) is they look at a passage in Scripture and it just – all they see is allegory because of their presupposition. 

The second thing with these liberal democrats is they're projecting their own patriotism on to Rush and accusing him of the exactly the same things that they are doing.  See people do that all the time.  There is a book written by a guy who is considered a world class theologian scholar has taught many years at a respected seminary. Vern Poithrus wrote a critique of dispensationalism and ripped everybody out of context and distorted everybody's words.  We were just appalled when this book came out.  It is not even-handed or objective at all.  This flows out of the whole agenda, worldview, and presupposition thing. 

As I pointed out earlier, the third thing we ought to note about these people is that they have this idea of meaning that is fluid. 

That's why they go back and say, "Meaning isn't determined by the author; meaning is determined by the hearer." 

So if they hear one thing, it doesn't matter what the speaker said or what he says he said because they get to interpret it the way they want to.  Okay?  So that's how all of this works itself out.  When you live in a relativistic culture, then you are going to have these kinds of problems. 

Let's look at some things in relation to the text.

Last time I went through some historical background and looked at the fact that you had Alexandrian Jews living in Alexandria, Egypt who were very influenced, deeply influenced, by Greek thought.  You had a number of people there like Philo and others who shaped an allegorical interpretation of the Jewish Old Testament and that eventually influenced Jewish interpretation. 

Then it was at that same location of Alexandria in North Africa that you had a man come up in the middle 2^nd century or early 3^rd century BC rather (81or 85 to 254) a man by the name of Origen.  He was very influenced by Platonic thought.  He was a brilliant man - many positive things that he contributed plus a boat load of negative things.  We could have well done without Origen.  But he taught that every passage has three levels of meaning based on body, soul and spirit.  The body is your literal meaning; soul is a moral meaning; spirit is a spiritual meaning.  But what you have to remember it that the soul meaning doesn't have anything to do with the lexical meaning of the words or the grammar or the historical context.  Neither does the spiritual meaning.  It is just something that is the imagination of the theologian to come up with that. 

I was thinking this afternoon that Origen actually began with a hyper-literalism.  We are often accused as dispensationalists of having a wooden literalism where we ignore figures of speech.  I would call that a wooden literalism.  It is not a true literal interpretation because we believe that you take language at its basic meaning.  Even though you have figures of speech they refer to something literal and they have an assigned meaning within the lexicography of the language. 

But when Origen was a young man and he was dealing with a lot of hormonal rumblings, he read the passage in the gospels that if your right eye offends you, pluck it out.  So he emasculated himself.  Origen went through the rest of his life teaching theology like this. So at one time he had a literal interpretation.  See if he had just waited until he developed his allegorical interpretation, he could have saved himself a lot of pain and embarrassment.  So we had Origen and then Augustine sort of solidified and institutionalized allegorical interpretation in the Middle Ages. 

Now a couple of points to what I added to what we did in the Middle Ages. 

Number 1, I said in the Middle Ages (the institutionalized church and theology) is dominated by a-millennialism and allegorical interpretation.  So nobody is thinking outside of that box.  Everybody who comes along from Anselm to Abelard to Thomas Aquinas to Bonaventure to Hugo of St. Victor – all these guys that are dominating the theology of the Middle Ages are all a-millennial and are allegorical in their interpretation. 

Now one of the things about allegorical interpretation that developed in the Middle Ages was the idea that every sentence of Scripture had to refer to Jesus – every passage of Scripture had to refer to Jesus.  They got this from Luke 24:44.  This is when Jesus is on the road to Emmaus.  This is after the resurrection.  Two of His disciples are leaving Jerusalem and going down the road to a little village not too far away – about 10 miles away. 

All of a sudden a stranger appears to them.  (That is where John Cross got the title of the book Stranger on the Road to Emmaus.)  Jesus has sort of veiled their eyes so they don't know who He is.  He talks to them and He goes through the prophets all the way through the Old Testament to show that the Old Testament talked about Jesus.  Then all of a sudden when He gets there they realize who He is. 

So Luke 24:44 says:

^NKJ Luke 24:44 Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."

Now an allegorical interpretation took that to mean that everything in the Law and the Prophets and the Writings (the three divisions of the Hebrew Old Testament) had to relate to Jesus.  But the problem with that is you get into I Chronicles 26:18 at the Parbar which is a river out west. 

^NKJ 1 Chronicles 26:18 As for the Parbar on the west, there were four on the highway and two at the Parbar.

Now you have to make that talk about Jesus.  See the problem?  So you really have to use a lot of imagination and maybe some drugs, whatever it is to try to make these things talk about Jesus.  In the Reformation, the Reformation was preceded by a return to a literal, grammatical interpretation.  Eventually all this nonsense about postmodern interpretation and you can't really know meaning…you can't really know truth.  That's what is at the root of the whole emergent church movement.  You can't really know truth.  You can't be dogmatic about anything.  So the only thing we have in common is that we can come to church and sing emotion-driven songs so that we can all just revel in our common religious experience that we call Christianity.  But let's try not to have any dogma or any doctrine or anything that's right or anything that's wrong because we can't really know those kinds of things. 

This kind of stuff can't work in the real world.  You can't operate any of your contracts that way.  You can't run a legal system this way.  It all falls apart.  So there is a return to literal and grammatical interpretation before the Reformation – and the original languages. 

Then we have the Reformation.  Then you have statements like this from Martin Luther.

The literal sense of Scripture alone is the whole essence of faith and of Christian theology. 

… not Scripture plus the traditional interpretation of the church, not Scripture plus your liver quiver, not Scripture plus anything else; just Scripture alone.

Calvin also affirmed this. 

Calvin said, "It's the first business of an interpreter to let his author say what he does instead of attributing to him what we think he ought to say." 

See it's the author of Scripture that determines the meaning of the passage.  Ultimately that is the Lord.

Now what is interesting is to study this period and see what happens hermeneutically and see how it parallels what is happening today. 

In 1965 (remember this date, 1965, if you remember back that far)… Many, many historians will say 1963 is sort of the benchmark date when everything changed.  Music changed; the culture changed, everything.  Education changes.  That's the year that Kennedy is assassinated.  It is the year the Supreme Court takes prayer out of the schools.  A number of other critical things happened in 1963. 

So in 1965 a woman medieval scholar by the name of Beryl Smalley wrote a book entitled The Bible in the Middle Ages, a Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages.  She makes several interesting comments.  She said first of all that in medieval scholarship (she says), they subordinated scholarship meanwhile to mysticism and to propaganda.  They subordinated scholarship.  That is instead of looking at what the text said, it had to be subordinated to mysticism.  So you all remember I often use these four stages of knowledge chart I put up – empiricism, rationalism, mysticism and revelation.  What happens in every human viewpoint system is that revelation is placed under and gets evaluated by either mysticism, rationalism or empiricism; whereas the biblical viewpoint is that revelation tells you how to evaluate.  It provides the safeguards, the governor, the controls for reason and feelings and empiricism. 

She goes on to say:

Again the crisis in the Middle Ages was reflected in biblical studies.  The speculation of Joachim of Fiore. 

If you don't know who he was, he was a mystic that came up about the year 1000.  He came up with this whole new revelatory scheme.  If you read the book The Name of the Rose, he is mentioned in there quite a bit because there is this apocalyptic guy that is always quoting fire and brimstone and everything else.  It constantly referred to Joachim of Fiore which most American readers would have no knowledge of.  You really had to have a PhD in Latin and Medieval theology and philosophy to understand The Name of the Rose.  But most people thought it had a good story when Sean Connery was in it.  But that's what he was.  He used this mystical hermeneutic system to generate this whole apocalyptic interpretation of Revelation and end times.  Since it was the Millennium - you think things got wild here with Y2K, well you should have been at Y1K with Joachim of Fiore.  Everybody was expecting Revelation - the beast and everything else to pop out of the ground after listening to him.  But it gives this whole new rise of mysticism that comes to play in the later Middle Ages. 

Now she also said:

Revolution and uncertainty have discouraged biblical scholarship in the past… 

That is talking about the Middle Ages. 

…and stimulated more subjective modes of interpretation.  So when you live in a period of change…

We had a revolution in 1963 whether you realized it or not.  The 60's were a major revolution in Western Civilization. 

Revolution and uncertainty have discouraged biblical scholarship in the past.  They did it in the 60's and they have stimulated more subjective modes of interpretation,, i.e. mysticism. 

In 1959 you have the beginning of the second wave of the Holy Spirit in the 20^th century according to charismatics which is the modern charismatic movement when Dennis Bennett who was the rector of the Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California at St. Marks stands up and speaks in tongues in church and doesn't leave the denomination.  So you have the charismatic movement that became mainstream in most denominations. 

And then she makes a very telling observation.  This is in 1964.  She said:

Conditions today are giving rise to a certain sympathy with the allegorists.  We have a spate of studies on medieval spirituality.  Medieval spirituality is becoming the norm in evangelicalism today. 

I remember in 1999 there was a grace evangelical society meeting in Dallas and a guy gave an excellent paper on contemplative spirituality.  If you were tuned in to what was going on with the New Age Movement in the early 80's that it had gone mainstream by the late 80's, you could go to any evangelical bookstore in this city and you could find works by Theresa of Avalon and St. John of the Cross and all these Roman Catholic medieval mystics.  Nobody even heard of these people in Protestant circles prior to the 80's. 

"But, oh yeah, this is great spirituality now."

Why?  Because, we have gone into relativism and we've gone into mysticism.  So I just thought these quotes from Beryl Smalley were quite insightful as to what's happened.  So this sets the stage for relativistic thinking.

Now another problem that we have that comes into play between dispensationalism and covenant theology and replacement theology is how to interpret the Old Testament when it is used in the New Testament.  This is usually classified under the saying, "How is the Old Testament used in the New Testament?  Remember I pointed out that in covenant theology and replacement theology, they usually believe that the real meaning of the Old Testament is determined by the New Testament.  There's a very important passage that's at the crux of a lot of this.  That's in Acts 2.  So turn in your Bibles with me to Acts 2. 

Now Acts 1 is where we have the ascension of Christ in the first part of the chapter in the first 11 verses.  Then the disciples go into the upper room and they draw straws to see who got the spiritual gift of apostleship so they could replace Judas.  That was unauthorized.  People don't decide who has the spiritual gift; God does.  I don't think Matthias was a legitimate choice.  You don't hear about him again.  I don't think he was a genuine apostle.  But, they meet.  Let's pick up the context a little bit since I am pointing out that context is important. 

They have this meeting and they select Matthias in verse 26.  Now remember there weren't any chapter breaks or verse breaks in the original. 

^NKJ Acts 1:26 And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias.

Who does the "they" refer to?  It refers to all 120 people in the room.  Every place else in the passage the "they" the third person plural pronoun always refers to the Twelve.  But it this one place it refers to the immediate antecedent in verse 25.  They cast their lots.  The lot fell on Matthias. 

And he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

^NKJ Acts 2:1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

Now where does the "they" begin in verse 1?  I just read right into chapter 2.  I took the last verse of chapter 1 and I didn't stop reading because there was no break in the original.  Okay, let me do it again.  I want you to pay attention to who the "they's" are.

Who does the "they" refer to in 2:1?  This is your Bible study quiz for the day – pop quiz.  Can you read?  Can you interpret?  To whom does the "they" refer to in 2:1?  The Apostles.  It doesn't refer to the 120; yet you go up to any place that has religious art They will have 120 people standing on the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem getting the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.  But, the "they" there only refers to the Twelve.  You are not going to have 120 people sit around in one of those 12 by 16 rooms for 40 days.  They wouldn't let men and women sleep together like that for one thing.  And, it is going to get a little bit stuffy in there for another thing.  So several days later when the Day of Pentecost arrives, they're all of one accord in one place.  That is the eleven.  They were still called the Twelve even though they had lost one.  That had become a title for them. 

^NKJ Acts 2:2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

^NKJ Acts 2:3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.

^NKJ Acts 2:4 And they

Who des the "they" refer to?  The Apostles.

were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

(No "other" in the original.)

^NKJ Acts 2:5 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven.

Josephus tells us that about 150,000 extra people showed up in Jerusalem for the major feast days. 

^NKJ Acts 2:6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language.

Who is the "them"?  The eleven apostles.

^NKJ Acts 2:7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, "Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?

See the 120 wouldn't all be Galileans.  So that just reinforces the idea that it's only the apostles that are speaking in tongues or speaking in languages.  It goes on and lists the various places where all these people came from and their language groups. 

It is an important study to figure out how many language groups were actually here.

I think it could be as few as 7.  I've had others tell me that it was 11.  But I think some of these areas had been under Greek control for so long.  Greek or Aramaic where the lingua franca of those areas and some of them had been 300 years.  But maybe the ancient languages still survived.  But it's not a lot of languages.  I'm not diminishing the miracle, but let's be honest.  It was probably somewhere between 7 and 11 languages.  That fits the number of apostles.  So it is just the apostles who initially receive the filling of the Holy Spirit.  That's so important in understanding the whole charismatic thing. 

Then they're accused of being drunk.  Then Peter stands up.  Now we have context. 

^NKJ Acts 2:14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words.

^NKJ Acts 2:15 "For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.

It is only the third hour. It is 9 o'clock in the morning.  They're not drunk yet. 

^NKJ Acts 2:16 "But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

This is really important.  This is a crux passage. 

Peter says, "This is what Joel talked about." 

What did Peter mean when he said that this is what Joel talked about?  What did he mean?  Did he mean that Joel prophesied this specific event?  He then quotes Joel.  This is directly out of Joel 2.

^NKJ Acts 2:17 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

Now stop.  In what we read (that is why I read all of that) did their sons and daughters prophecy?  No.

Your young men shall see visions,

Any young men seeing visions in Acts 2?  No.

Your old men shall dream dreams.

Any old men dreaming dreams in Acts 2?  No. 

^NKJ Acts 2:18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy.

Any prophecy going on here?  The Holy Spirit has come upon them, but there is no prophecy. 

^NKJ Acts 2:19 I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke.

Any blood, fire vapor or smoke going on here?  No. 

^NKJ Acts 2:20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.

Any moon blood or sun darkness here?  No, nothing.

^NKJ Acts 2:21 And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.'

Okay what did happen on the Day of Pentecost? They spoke in languages that they hadn't previously learned.  Is that mentioned in Joel 2?  No.  Okay, so what happened on the Day of Pentecost isn't mentioned in Joel 2.  What is mentioned in Joel 2 doesn't happen at all.  None of those things happened in Acts 2. But Peter says this is what the prophet Joel was saying. 

So now we have to ask the question – hum, what did Peter mean when he said that?  You and I come in with our Western European Greek oriented frame of reference and want to make that say that this is a fulfillment of prophecy. 

Now if you are an a-millennialist or post-millenialist or a progressive dispensationalist at Dallas Seminary, then you are going to say, "Hum there is a level of fulfillment here because that is what Peter said.  So therefore we must be in some form of the kingdom because these events that Joel talked about happened just as the kingdom comes in." 

So if we are in some form of the kingdom, that is what a-millenialists said.  There is no literal 1,000 year kingdom.  Christ is now reigning in your hearts and He is sitting on David's throne at the right hand of God in heaven and ruling from heaven.  Progressive dispensationalists say the same thing.  They still believe in a future literal millennium, but they say that Jesus is sitting on David's throne at the Father's right hand.  He is not just in session; He is seated on David's throne because this passage is saying that that was fulfilled.  Right?  Hum.  How are we going to understand this?  This is a big issue. 

Okay.  I am not shy.  I got all of this from Arnold.  I think Arnold did a great job on this.  Arnold showed that this is how the rabbis, how the Jews at that time in history were quoting Old Testament passages – four different ways. 

You get the examples in Matthew 2. This is phenomenal.  I remember sitting down with Tommy Ice when we were at Dallas Seminary going over this I don't know how many years ago.  It is like a blinding flash of truth hits you. It has helped me in understanding all these kinds of Old Testament, New Testament passages through the years.  Tommy has written at least I don't know how many articles on hermeneutics and prophecy and he always goes to this.  Arnold does as well.  It is great material. 

We are going to our first example.  How does the New Testament quote the Old Testament?  Remember the writers in the New Testament are Jews.  So they are citing things in a typical way that Jews would quote things.  When they say "this" is "that" it doesn't mean the same thing it would mean to a Greek speaker. 

1.  The first example is where the Old Testament is a literal prophecy.  It is a literal prophecy foretelling a future event and the New Testament passage is simply saying this is how that prophecy has been literally fulfilled.  So we will go to Matthew 2:5-6.  This is when the Magi show up with King Herod wondering where the King of the Jews is.  Since he is king of the Jews, paranoid Herod wasn't liking what he was hearing because the Magi were Parthian king makers. 

So he asked them, "Where is this king supposed to be born?"

Actually he called in his advisers and said, "Where is the king supposed to be born?"  His advisors said

^NKJ Matthew 2:5 So they said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet:

^NKJ Matthew 2:6 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.' "

Now this is a quote from Micah 5:2. 

^NKJ Micah 5:2 " But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting."

That is Bethlehem in the territory of Ephrathah.  He was an individual. 

See it is a literal prophecy.  The Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem.  It was literally fulfilled.  This means that it is literal prophecy.  It is literally fulfilled.  Jesus is born in Bethlehem. 

2.  The next example still comes out of Matthew.  I think Arnold's terminology is a little confusing.  This is a literal Old Testament – a literal historical event with a typological application. 

Typology is when the writer of Scripture uses some person or some concrete object in the Old Testament to foreshadow or picture something about the person or work of Jesus Christ or some future event. 

In Matthew 2:15 we read:

^NKJ Matthew 5:12 "Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

This is after the Magi have gone to – remember the Magi went to Bethlehem, brought gold, myrrh, frankincense to our Lord and they left another way.  Then Herod has the slaughter of the infants and then he finally dies.  Between them the angel appeared to Joseph and told them to leave Judah and head down to Egypt.  Then he comes back from Egypt.  We read in Matthew 2:15: 

^NKJ Matthew 2:15 and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt I called My Son."

Now this is a quote from Hosea 11:1. 

^NKJ Hosea 11:1 "When Israel was a child, I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son.

So Hosea was a prophet.  So anything the prophet writes is technically a prophecy.  But it is really just a historical statement.  It is a reference to a real historical event, the Exodus out of Egypt.  You go back and you read Hosea 11:1. 

When Hosea says, "Out of Egypt did I call My son," he is talking about who?  Israel.  Israel is called by God His son in the Old Testament.  So Hosea is talking about a literal historical event.  It's not a prophecy.  He is not foretelling anything.  He is talking about the fact that back in 1446 God brought the Jews out of Egypt – historical event – literal historical event.  God has told Pharaoh that Israel is "My first born".  It all fits the context.  The reason Matthew quotes this is he is quoting it typologically.  Just as (that was a picture.) the Jews came out of Egypt, their Messiah is coming out of Egypt.  It foreshadowed about the Messiah.  It is a typological application, not a literal application.  It wasn't a prophecy at all.  It's not a literal prophecy or literal application.  It's just a typological application of a literal historical event.

Then we come to the third use which comes in the next couple of verses, Matthew 2:17-18.  This is related to the death of the infants. 

^NKJ Matthew 2:17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying:

^NKJ Matthew 2:18 "A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more."

Ramah is just down by Bethlehem.  That's where Rachel is buried. It is within Bethlehem today.

Now what in the world is that talking about?  Well, that is a quote from Jeremiah 31:15 where the Lord says:

^NKJ Jeremiah 31:15 Thus says the LORD: "A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted for her children, Because they are no more."

Rachel is not literally Rachel.  Rachel has been dead for 1,000 years or more.  Rachel is the mother of Israel.  Rachel was Jacob's wife and she is pictured representing the motherhood of Israel. 

What is happening in Jeremiah 31:15?  Well, it is 586 BC.  Those of you who are coming on Tuesday night, what happened in 586 BC?  Nebuchadnezzar came in and wiped out the Southern Kingdom of Judah.  He destroys Jerusalem; he destroys the temple; and he takes all these young men and women captives, shackles them together, and marches them off to Babylon, right down the road passed Rachel's grave.  So it is an historical event, isn't it?  It is talking about a literal historical event.  The mothers of Israel as they watch the young people being hauled off into captivity are weeping for them.  So Jeremiah 31:15 is merely descriptive of a literal historical event. 

But here it is being applied not typologically, but is being applied in the same way that the mothers of Israel wept over their loss of their children in 586 BC.  These mothers of Israel in Bethlehem (the same area) are weeping over the loss of their infants.  See "this" is "that".  This is exactly the same thing that Peter is doing in Joel 2.  He is not saying that Joel 2 is being literally fulfilled before your very eyes.  It is the end of the Day of the Lord.  We know that Joel 2 doesn't take place until the end of the tribulation. 

But what Peter is doing is quoting that whole passage to say that what you have just witnessed is a falling of the Holy Spirit upon people and producing miraculous phenomenon.  That's just like what Joel said was going to happen at the end of the tribulation period during the Day of the Lord.  The Holy Spirit will fall upon God's people and miraculous things are going to take place.  That's the only point of comparison.  What you see here since we are in Hebrews, what you see there in Acts 2 (and I think this was typical of the way Jews quoted Scripture), he doesn't just quote the little technical section or phrase he wants to apply, he quotes the whole 5 or 6 verses (17-18-19-20-21-22.) He quotes 5 verses.  When we get into Hebrews 8, the writer of Hebrews is going to do the same kind of thing.  He is going to quote the whole section in Jeremiah 31 on a New Covenant. 

And then at the end he is going to say, "See New Covenant implies that the Old Covenant had to be temporary because it was going to be replaced by a New Covenant.  He doesn't exegete or expound or comment on anything else in any of those verses other than the phrase "New Covenant." 

In our way of thinking we would not have quoted the other 7 ½ verses.  We would have only quoted the phrase.  See it was called the New Covenant and New Covenant the Old Covenant.  But he quotes the whole thing. 

So that's typical of Jewish quoting.  They will quote a whole passage only to focus on one little microscopic detail in there.  So that's what's really happening.  When Peter says this is what the prophet Joel spoke about, he is really saying "this is like" in the same way that Matthew in Matthew 2:17-18 was saying that the same kind of thing is happening now that happened in 586 BC.  The mothers of Israel were weeping over their children.

Now the last use which is really a fun use.  This is one of those things that you just love to learn about is in Matthew 2:23 when Joseph and Mary came and resided in a city.  City is a little overblown.  It was a backwater – it wouldn't have even had a single stop light or a stop sign.  It was just a little backwater village called Nazareth. 

^NKJ Matthew 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets,

See this is what Matthew says. 

"He shall be called a Nazarene."

Where in the Old Testament does it say He shall be called a Nazarene?  Nowhere - not one place.  Wait a minute!  The Bible says the prophets said He will be called a Nazarene.  But it doesn't even say that anywhere in the Old Testament.  Not one place.  So what is going on here?

Well, in New Testament times, Nazarenes were sort of like – when I was up in New England one of the first things I learned was people would say, "Well if you cross the line over into Maine your IQ will drop 50 points". 

Later on down in the Mid Atlantic states I learned that if you go to West Virginia, your IQ drops 50 points.  Every place, every locality everywhere in the world has some place nearby that's sort of the Pasadena of the local area or the Arkansas of the local area.  Nobody here is from Arkansas so I can say that.  It's the low rent district where people have family trees that don't fork.  Okay.  So that's what people thought about Nazareth – is that nothing good could come out of Nazareth. 

That's why they said about Jesus. 

"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" 

No.  Why would God come out of Nazareth? Nazareth is nothing.  The people there are just birth defects and everything else.  They have a lower IQ.  This is really - there was no respect for anybody who came out of Nazareth. 

Now what the writer is doing is summarizing.  The basic picture the prophets present is that the Messiah is going to be rejected and ridiculed and they won't have nay respect for Him.  So that's what he is doing. 

He is sort of saying, "In summary, if I want to just paraphrase and pull together the general thinking of what the prophets say about the Messiah is that He is not going to be respected." 

But, he put it in their idiom.  He says He is going to be called a Nazarene.  It is not politically correct.  Somebody back then probably should have brought him up on charges for hate speech, but you know that's the way the world runs.

Okay.  So there are four different ways in which the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament. 

1. The first way is a literal prophecy that has literal fulfillment. 
2. The second way is a literal historical event that is applied typologically to something in the life of Christ. 
3. The third is a literal historical event that is used by application or applied to a literal historical event that took place in the New Testament period.
4. Then the last way is that it is the teaching of the Old Testament is just summarized and presented in the New Testament. 

So then when we come to Acts 2 we realize that Peter isn't saying that this descent of the Holy Spirit is bringing in the kingdom in any way, shape or form.  He is just saying that this event by the Holy Spirit is like what was prophesied in Joel 2.  So we are convinced that this is a work of God and that this is done by God the Holy Spirit.  That is all that he is saying.  We are not in the kingdom.  Jesus is not on the throne of David.  Jesus is seated at the right hand as our High Priest.  That's what is significant for the writer of Hebrews. 

Let's pray.

Illustrations