Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
Day 65
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
The Spiritual Reading
(Gospel Sense) (p. 131ff).
In BJ’s
first paragraph, he sets off to show how Jesus is seen in the Scriptures, but
beginning with his dishonest claim that his non-literal “literal sense” leads
to his presentation of “the spiritual sense”. Let’s continue examining his claims.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“The literal sense invoked the spiritual sense, meaning that a careful
literary reading of the words in the context of their genres would bear the
good and necessary fruit of seeing Jesus there” (p. 131). |
More poison in the pudding. There is no problem with seeking to understand how Jesus is revealed
throughout the Scriptures. There is a huge problem in BJ claiming that his “literal sense” gives
a “careful literary reading of the words in the context of their genres”. He
absolutely does not read words in context, and he has no regard for the
actual genre of writing he is dealing with. It is the Historical-Grammatical
sense that is careful in its literary reading, seeks to understand every word
in context, and is honest about what genre is being used. |
For reminder, here is our chart that shows that BJ’s distorted pendulum extreme of his “literal sense” cannot admit to the historical genre of the Old Testament because he has already decided (quite independently of the Scriptures) that he will not look at God’s words as anything other than figurative, allegorical, even fictitious. The historical genre is none of the above!
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BJ’s Literal Sense |
The Historical-Grammatical Sense |
BJ’s Literalism |
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Claims “literal” but means “tropological” (moral of the story), his
“different gospel” (from outside of the Scriptures), and “typological”
(allegorical), none of which mean "literal". |
The grammatical-historical method means reading the Bible in a plain
manner, respecting grammar, word meanings, and other factors with an emphasis
on context, Context, CONTEXT. |
BJ puts people here who ascribe to the plain meaning of Scripture as
if they are stifling the Holy Spirit and missing the point of the divine and
human authors.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“In Galatians, Paul models this type of reading and calls it allegory –
a virtual swear word to the literalists” (p. 131). |
Au contraire! Let’s look up the verse BJ is referring to: “Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar” (Galatians 4:24). The NIV translates this “These things are to be taken figuratively”. Because this is going to take some ‘splainin’, I will move outside the
box for a minute or two. |
First,
no, Paul does NOT even remotely model the way BJ reads the Bible!
Second, Paul is not giving a “type of reading” the Bible, but a way to
look at the historical events he is referring to. BJ is trying to take Paul’s
focus in this instance and use it to support his all-inclusive-treat-the-whole-Bible-as-tropological
approach. I will simply clarify that this does not even come close to doing
that.
Third,
no, Paul does NOT call it “allegory”. “Allegory” is a noun. That is not what Paul
is using here. The word “interpreted allegorically” (yes, one word in the
Greek) is a verb. It isn’t stating what something is, but an action that is
being taken.
In
other words, Paul is NOT saying that the original description of Abraham, Hagar
and Sarah was allegorical. He is saying that the original description of these
people and events in the historical genre “may be interpreted allegorically”,
or “to be taken figuratively”.
What
we have is NOT an allegorical story with an allegorical meaning, but a
historical reality that also has a figurative illustration that applies to the
differences between the Old Covenant and the New. Just as Jesus spoke of Jonah
as real history, but applied Jonah’s three days as fish food in a figurative
way that applied to Jesus’ death and resurrection, so Paul is speaking of real
history that involved Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, and uses it to illustrate why
there is such a difference between the two major covenants in the Bible.
A
God-Sense-of-Humor Interlude
Right after I wrote the above, I reluctantly
forced myself to go downstairs and exercise. I checked my notebook to see where
I left off listening to Scripture, and opened my ESV-app to Genesis 18:1. The
reason I am calling this section a God-Sense-of-Humor interlude is because I
first read about this section in BJ’s book, and then discovered that this was
right where I left off my journey through the Bible during my exercise time!
That meant that I heard for myself what God’s word said on the matter BJ was
addressing.
My first God-Sense-of-Humor moment was in
relistening to the account of God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Hard as I
listened, I couldn’t pick up anything that sounded like a temper tantrum. Yahweh
was telling Abraham what he would do, Abraham was humbly pointing out that it
would be wrong of Yahweh to condemn the righteous in his destruction of the
wicked, it was determined that there were no righteous people in Sodom and
Gomorrah beyond Lot’s family, and so God carried out his judgment.
My second God-Sense-of-Humor moment was
listening to the account of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, the subject of BJ’s claim
that Paul saw them as allegorical. The fact that this coincided with what I had
just read in BJ’s book seemed amazing to me.
However, what stood out as I listened from
Genesis 18-31 was that everything sounded HISTORICAL! There was simply too much
detail for a figurative or allegorical description of the people or events.
With
that history fresh in my mind, we can now look at what Paul wrote and ascertain
that he was treating the original people and events as history, writing about
them as history (Galatians 4:21-23), and then applying them “allegorically” or “figuratively”
to the two covenants.
I will
leave it at that because it will get too lengthy to point out how Paul did this,
but anyone can read Galatians 4 for themselves and see that he speaks of the
people and events of Genesis as real history, but uses them figuratively to
show why we do not bind anyone to the Old Covenant, but preach the gospel of
the kingdom to call people into the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood.
Conclusion: Paul did NOT call Genesis “allegory”. He said that the
history the Jews knew very well had an application to the two covenants in an
allegorical way. And that is a big difference!
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“…allegory – a virtual swear word to the literalists” (p. 131). |
Yes, if you use “allegory” in place of “allegorical”, it is false
teaching under the curse. However, as usual, BJ ignores that the
Historical-Grammatical people who can differentiate between the history of
Genesis and the allegorical application in Galatians are the plumbline on
this, and both his non-literal “Literal Sense” and his fabricated “literalists”
are missing the mark. We do not need our mouths washed out with soap for
pointing out the deceptive wording BJ uses to make it look like he’s come up with
a convincing point when it is just more poison in the pudding after all. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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In giving further testimony of his earlier years, BJ claims that “I
closed my heart to the way Christ and his apostles read the whole Scriptures
as gospel” (p. 131). |
We’ll ignore the testimony part since there is no way I can test it. However, he is now referring to what he just said, that Paul called
Genesis “allegory”, as “the way Christ and his apostles read the whole
Scriptures as gospel”. And I say that is false. If “gospel” is another
way to sneak in the belief that the Jewish Scriptures were allegory, that is
entirely bogus. At the same time, I have no doubt that Jesus and the apostles saw the
true gospel throughout the whole of Scripture, but not the distorted one BJ
is literally teaching about his allegorizing worldview. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Fr. John Behr, whom I have quoted previously in this book, is one of
our foremost patristic scholars, and he says, ‘If you aren’t reading the Old
Testament allegorically, you’re not reading it as Scripture!’” (p. 131). |
Which makes John Behr just as dishonest and deceptive as Brad Jersak!
We just showed that BJ’s one example of “allegory” wasn’t treating the Old
Testament Scriptures as allegory, but applying the historical record of
Genesis in an allegorical way. Of course, I have my own testimony of reading the Scriptures of both
Testaments for decades and I have known that I was reading the breathed-out
words of God, something the BJs have not yet understood. I simply say that JB along with BJ are bogus in their claim that the
Old Testament history was written in allegorical terms. It is history with allegorical applications. And sorry, but I have been reading Scripture (the written word of God) as Scripture very well,
thank you very much. |
It grieves
me that I have to type all this next section out, but it is absolutely
ludicrous in the claims, especially since we have seen that BJ is still batting
0 in rightly handling the word of God.
BJ claims that JB’s lie of, “‘If you aren’t reading the Old Testament allegorically, you’re not reading it as Scripture’… is shorthand for what we have just been discussing” (p. 131), and then gives us three bulleted points to summarize. I will put them in the next box as a collection because it is the false conclusions that are the big problem.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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· “The whole of the Old Testament
points to Christ and his gospel, according to Jesus on the road to Emmaus.
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First bullet: the whole Bible is the word of
God so it most definitely expresses a cohesive story of God’s work to have a
people in the image and likeness of his Son. The gospel is part of that, the
way by which God would redeem the not-like-Jesus people so they could be
transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Yes, one of the things we find
throughout the whole Old Testament is the preparation and prophecy of what Jesus
would do to redeem God’s people. |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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· “To read the Old Testament as
Scripture is to read it as a revelation of the gospel. |
The opening chapters of the Bible show us the
God who wants to have fellowship with the creature he made in the image and
likeness of his Son. The closing chapters of the Bible show us God being with
his people who are in the image and likeness of his Son. The whole Bible
shows this work of God. The gospel is included. The gospel is seen throughout
the Old Testament Scriptures. But to read the Old Testament as Scripture is
to read it as the breathed-out words of God. Period. From there we receive
what it says about history, how it reveals God to us, and how it prophecies
what God would do to redeem his lost people. It all weaves together beyond
what we can capture in words, but it is false to limit our reading of the Old
Testament as Scripture that we need to recognize every time there is an
application to the gospel. If we are reading the Old Testament as the breathed-out
words of God, and we want to understand what it teaches us that can be
applied to life under the new covenant in Jesus’ blood, we are reading it as
Scripture, the written word of God. And when we do this, we will see the
gospel and gospel applications all over the place! |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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· “To read the Old Testament
Scriptures as a revelation of Christ requires reading them allegorically. To
not do so is to not read them as Christian Scripture” (p. 131). |
No, reading the Old Testament Scriptures as a
revelation of the Triune God does NOT require reading them… as allegory! Let me clarify. BJ is trying to distort what
Paul said into a confirmation of his tropological viewpoint. And yes, he has
to distort and twist Paul’s words to make it appear that Paul saw Old
Testament history as allegory. What Paul meant was clearly that the
historical descriptions in Genesis could be applied allegorically to the
difference between the old and new covenants. But what the BJs mean is that
the Old Testament Scriptures themselves were allegorical, meaning, not
history. So Paul absolutely did NOT agree with what BJ is claiming. And, in
the sense the BJs mean it, no, we do not need to read the Old Testament
Scriptures as allegory in order to see how Christ is revealed in them. And it is
absolutely bogus that if we don’t buy what the BJs are peddling we are not
reading the Old Testament “as Christian Scripture”. Hogwash! |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Strong words, but also liberating and hope-filled, because they could
just lead us back to an apostolic reading that retrieves and amplifies the
Emmaus-Road experience” (p. 131). |
I think I’m going to have to end with this quote since it is so full
of poison-peddling that it needs to be broken down in an almost word-for-word
rebuke. To save a bit of space, I’m going to do this work outside the box. |
1. “Strong
words…” No, false and deceitful words.
2. “but
also liberating and hope-filled…” No, deceiving people with false claims about
the Bible will never liberate anyone. In fact, what BJ says here is exactly
what Satan said to Eve in the garden, that it would be liberating for her if
she would reject God’s clearly spoken words and listen to serpents and peddlers
instead. And, this deception is not filled with hope since it takes people away
from living by every word that comes from the mouth of God because the BJs and
their ilk have convinced them that God didn’t say what he said or mean what he
meant. Not liberating and hope-filled, but stealing, killing, and destroying,
just as Jesus said that thief would keep doing.
3. “because
they could just lead us back to an apostolic reading…” We just saw in the above
rebuttals that BJ’s claim about how Paul read the Jewish Scriptures was
absolutely bogus. Read the gospels and the book of Acts. Jesus and the apostles
were always treating the Scriptures like the breathed-out words of God, like
real history and prophecy, and not like the allegorical model the BJ’s are
promoting. BJ’s approach continues to lead down the garden path of the serpent,
but not even close to “an apostolic reading”.
4. “that
retrieves and amplifies the Emmaus-Road experience.” If BJ was teaching the
true “apostolic reading” of Scripture, treating all Scripture like the
breathed-out words of God, and he was teaching the true Emmaus-Road experience
where Jesus showed his disciples how the Jewish Scriptures pointed to him, then
we might be excited about the idea of something retrieving and amplifying the
Emmaus-Road experience. But BJ has denied the historicity of the sections of
Scripture Jesus spoke of, he writes history off as allegory because he has a
distaste for a miraculous God, and he rejects that part of our salvation that
is clearly revealed as the plan and purpose of God from before the beginning of
time.
In
this section, we have seen that BJ misrepresents what Paul said about how
aspects of Genesis “may be interpreted allegorically” or could “be taken
figuratively”. He claims that Paul “calls it allegory” when that means
something quite different. I interjected God’s sense of humor in leading me
through the chapters in Genesis that reveal God pouring out his wrath on Sodom
and Gomorrah, something BJ has claimed God would never do, and the chapters
describing Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar as Paul was speaking of them in Galatians
4. Every part of those chapters was the history of what took place. None of it
was allegory even though it could be applied allegorically.
And that’s the point. The BJs keep saying “allegory”
when there is none, they keep showing Scriptures they claim make their points
when they absolutely do not, and there is no way anyone should be treating
these guys as having validity in what they say. I continue to present that BJ is
teaching the “another Jesus”, “different spirit”, and “different gospel” Paul
warned about, and it is time to stop putting up with it so easily!
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible Systems
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